• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 4, 2005

Readership of blogs rose 58 percent between February and November of last year, according to a study released Sunday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

While the number of Americans online remained constant year-over-year, the proportion of users who claimed to visit blogs grew from 17 to 27 percent by November. Pew also found that 7 percent of online users--or 8 million Americans--had created their own blogs, up from 3 percent in 2002. At the same time, said Pew, only 38 percent of all Americans online actually know what a blog is.

The growing interest, however, has yet to translate into significant ad dollars, said industry experts. Henry Copeland, whose company BlogAds.com sells ads on blogs, figured that in a $250 billion advertising industry, it would take a paltry $300,000 to achieve a presence on every blog in existence today.

Lee Rainie, founding director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, interpreted his research results as proof of the blogosphere's growing online presence, but was reluctant to address implications for advertisers. "We're not concluding that there's a market here," Rainie said.

Industry-wide, ad executives offered plenty of reasons for avoiding the blogosphere. "We're very interested in the medium and would love to explore it, but our clients are particularly cautious," explained John Montgomery, CEO of WPP Group's mOne North America. "Lifestyle blogs could work very well--fishing, or tennis, or something--but who's interested in that? The problem is that the blogs generating all the buzz are those that our clients think too risky to associate with."

Ryan McConnell, a consumer strategist at Aegis Group's Carat Insight, agreed that blogs might be a tough sell these days. "It's yet to be seen whether blogs keep up the momentum now that the political season is beyond us," said McConnell.

Even when blogs generate traffic--such as the well-publicized spike in blog visits after the Dec. 26 tsunami--the jump doesn't necessarily give marketers an incentive to advertise. "A company has to seriously ask themselves: 'Do we really want to associate ourselves with the greatest natural disaster of the last quarter century?'" continued Montgomery.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project, founded by Rainie in December 1999, is a Washington, D.C. research center that has examined how people's Internet use affects their families, communities, health care, education, civic and political life, and work places. The Project has issued more than 90 reports based on surveys and other research on these social issues and important public policy questions such as trust and privacy online, e-government, intellectual property, broadband adoption, and the digital divides.