Blogging is not Dead Yet! And it isn’t Tweeting

Podcasting News in talking about blogging notes that pundits always say that blogging is dead.

They went on to say:

The NYT said that blogging was dead because the young are switching to Twitter – as if they were interchangeable.

Stats from Nielsen, though, show the number of blogs growing at a steady pace for six years, from about 36 million in ’06 to 173 million last year.

Here’s how they profile bloggers:

• Women make up the majority of bloggers;
• Half of bloggers are aged 18-34;
• Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates;
• About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52 percent of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household; and
• Bloggers are active across social media: they’re twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month.

While the buzz may wear off blogging, podcasting and other forms of citizen media, it probably means that the technology has matured and moved into a steady growth phase – exactly what the Nielsen stats show.