Blog readership showed no growth between February and December 2005, according to the Gallup's annual lifestyle survey.
The December poll reported that only 9 percent of Internet users frequently read blogs - short for Web logs - 11 percent read occasionally, 13 percent read rarely and 66 percent never read them. Although respondents were asked different questions in the February poll, the percentages were similar.
More than 1,000 adults were interviewed by phone for the poll, which has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Despite the results, local bloggers and other experts said the medium is still increasing in popularity and is showing signs of continued growth.
"Like any new medium in terms of media, it takes time to integrate into the market and gain readership," said Karl-Thomas Musselman, a government, Plan I honors and urban studies junior.
Musselman is head of Burnt Orange Report, a political blog run by UT students and has seen an increase over the years in the number of people who read his and other Texas blogs. The existing blogs have many types of media to compete with, but even a small readership is important, he said. "You don't have to capture 100 percent of the market to get the word out to 100 percent of the people," Musselman said. "Many readers are leaders who get the movement going and spur national debate."
Blogs have been cited as the incendiary force behind events such as Howard Dean's presidential campaign and the scandal that led to Dan Rather's resignation, said Rosental Alves, a UT journalism professor who teaches a class on online journalism class.
"Effectively, the watchdog, the press, now has a watchdog of its own," Alves said.
At first mainstream media was afraid that it would have to compete with bloggers, but the future of blogging is seen as a compliment to the media, to help explain and criticize through commentary, Alves said. He added that blogs are a tool that can be used to cover issues such as journalism and politics or as personal diaries.
"They're a seamless, hassle-free, easy-to-publish, new form of the personal Web page," he said.
Jacques Distler, a physics professor, said he discovered the medium in summer 2002 after a broken wrist left him unable to write but able to type. Having read a couple of blogs before, he wanted to experiment with the new medium and was attracted to the ease with which he was able to publish his thoughts on physics and other subjects of interest.
"Blogs give me a platform that has a visibility that's hard to rival," Distler said. "I get a better response to the physics topics on my blog than in a published paper."
Distler has seen readership to his blog double in the last year to 3,000 readers a day.
Chip Rosenthal, a 45-year-old blogger and one of the creators of AustinBloggers.org, said the best way to get readers is to write often. Between March and January, AustinBloggers.org saw an increase from 1,860 visitors to 2,336 visitors each day, he said.
"I see blogging maturing and a steady adoption as it continues to emerge into a new form of publishing," Rosenthal said.
"Blogs gained a lot of attention and hype with an adoption curve that peaked quickly, but they're definitely here to stay," said Andrew Dillon, dean of the School of Information.
Be the first to comment on this article!