Click Here To Go Back To Read The Intro Post & Section 1

Section 2: Long Run Projection Rates

Using Technorati’s math of 133 Million Blogs worldwide, and disregarding the generally excepted 180 Million blogs number (often quoted online) I did a simple growth chart. As you will see in figure 1.51 below, if blogs were just to simply keep growing at the pace they are now of about 94 Million blogs added each year, by 2018 we will have over 1 Billion blogs online.

Figure 1.51

The reality is that growth is speeding up, not slowing down. If blogs did not speed up their growth and are currently posting about 7.4 Million articles every 120 days or over 22 Million per year, then by 2010 there will be over 50 million blog posts being added each year.

Let’s consider if growth compounds.

Figure 1.52

	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Blogs	133,000,000	199,500,000	299,250,000	448,875,000	673,312,500

By 2013 there could be over 1 Billion Blogs online.

In all likelihood, the compound growth scenario in Figure 1.52 is probably most accurate considering 78% of the 6.6 Billion people on the planet aren’t online yet. As you will see in Figure 1.53 below, over 1 Billion new internet users came online in just the last 8 years, many of whom decided to blog. So, if the annual growth rate of new internet users’ stays constant or grows, then this means even more competition and dilution for the current 133 Million blogs.

 

Figure 1.53

Click Here to Go To Part 3 of Traditional Blogs Are Dying- The Problems

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References

Figure 1.51 LeeRaito.com Simple Growth Projection (Blogs growing at 94,608,000 blogs per year)

Figure 1.52 LeeRaito.com Compound Growth Projection (Blogs compounded growth of 50%/year)

Figure 1.53 World Internet Net User Statistics http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm

Traditional Blogs are Dying & Why You Need to Stay Ahead of the Curve to Profit

This is part one of a four part quasi White Paper I have put together on the changing and controversial landscape of traditional blogging. My hope is to create a conversation on whether people agree or disagree that traditional blogs are dying, and what the future holds for the blogosphere.

Outline:

Intro: The Blogosphere’s Problems Are Your Opportunity

Section 1: Current Stats on the Blogosphere

Section 2: Long Run Projection Rates

Section 3: The Problem(s)

Section 4: How to Stay Ahead of The Curve & Profit

Conclusion: The Death of the Traditional Blog Is Your Opportunity To Stay Ahead of The Curve

Intro: The Blogosphere’s Problems Are Your Opportunity

What is the problem?

The blogosphere needs some form of birth control, as with current growth rates by 2010, there will be approximately 300 Million blogs online making it next to impossible for 99% of regular companies, professionals and personal bloggers to benefit from traditional blogging. There is not going to be a magical pill to stop the growth.

3 Blogs Are Born Every Second

As you will see through out this White Paper there is a fundamental paradigm shift going on in the elite circles of the Blogosphere towards multi-media blogging & micro blogging as the death of traditional blogging takes hold. This shift is occurring because it has to, in order to keep blogs alive and relevant. The statistics that you will read in Section 1 and projected growth rates in Section 2 will astound you, and you will begin to understand why the old school style text blog is a dying breed (Only A Select Few Will Survive)!

Section 1: Current Statistics on the Blogosphere

Many of the statistics you will see here are cast in a positive light, as they were drawn from over 1000 bloggers who took part in Technorati’s.com 2008 State of The Blogosphere Survey. I am highlighting the positive aspects, because I want to be very clear that the opportunity for blogging, into 2009 and beyond, is nothing short of amazing. But as you will also see, there is a darker side of the Blogosphere that Technorati did not delve into. It is this darker side, and overpopulation of new blogs that pose the majority of problems that will need to be overcome in the coming years and decade.

 

Figure 1.10

With three new blogs coming online every second it is hard to fathom the numbers. With Technorati’s 133 Million blogs on record, one way to measure the statistical significance of the all the new content coming online is to look at ping statistics. A ping occurs when a blog posts a new article.

As you will see in Figure 1.11 below, 93% of Spinn3r’s hourly pings are from spam blogs. Technorati safeguards itself and its members from this spam, but the blogosphere increasingly has to fight this new reality.

If you are a blogger, whether corporate or personal this is a major problem which is costing you or your company time and money.

 

What Are Spam Blogs?Sometimes referred to by the neologism splogs are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites. The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors and/or use the blog as a link outlet to get new sites indexed. Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site where content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen (see blog scraping) from other websites. These blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites.There is frequent confusion between the terms “splog” and “spam in blogs”. Splogs are blogs where the articles are fake and are only created for search engine spamming. To spam in blogs conversely is to include random comments on the blogs of innocent bystanders in which spammers take advantage of a site’s ability to allow visitors to post comments that may include links.Figure 1.12

Why are spam blogs so pervasive? Simple answer… its profitable!

Here are what bloggers are writing about:

Figure 1.30

So why do bloggers blog anyways?

Figure 1.40

Considering only 21% of bloggers make any money at all, it appears many of the remaining bloggers will at some point try and monetize their blog. As you will see in the next section on Long Run Projections, this will be a very difficult task with fierce competition from not only the existing blogosphere, but the millions of new internet users that will choose to blog.

Figure 1.41

Yes, blogging can be lucrative.

If you find yourself in the top 1%, then your blog is responsible for over $200,000 in revenue each year. These top earners also skew the numbers, and as a result have many traditional blog newbie’s chasing a carrot that is 99% unachievable.

Having said all that, the future of multimedia and micro blogging is bright… it just won’t be with traditional text only blogs.

The future of bloggingBloggers peer into their crystal balls and prognosticate:”Andy Warhol said that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. His point was that we would shift from having a few famous people for a long time to many famous people for a short time. I think the number of blogs will grow, but the average life span of a blog will shorten.”Scott Sheppard  labs.blogs.com“There will be more blogs used in education, particularly among K-12 students and teachers. Bookmarks will merge with blogs for those of us who use our blogs as note-pads or filing cabinets. Blog archives will be viewed as a rich source of cultural history. Blogs will be a means for more collaborative team work. People will expect businesses, media, and print organizations, even government organizations, to have some form of blog, in order to promote communication. Blogging will also help to provide insight to businesses about their consumers.”Lynn Marentette interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com“This is just the beginning for blogging. People are getting better and better at this skill set, quality is improving, and we will soon have millions of people generating great content around the clock.”Brett Bumeter  softduit.com“There’s a lot of sploggage out there now, and tons of “make money” type bloggers which glut the playing field. It makes the searching and finding of good content difficult. I think the individual or group blog or blogging group networks will simply be a part of the warp and woof of the Internet. There’s no better way to communicate with a large number of people than blogging.” Amos Dettonville mostbloggers.blogspot.com “Blogs will eventually morph – some will break off into hybridized news sites, others into password-protected ‘personal diaries,’ with others going on to offer products and services (home businesses).” Dave Lucas  dave-lucas.blogspot.com “I’ve loved watching how some of the Big Dog corporate bloggers adopt the characteristics that make the best personal blogs so effective: personality, passion, smarts, usefulness, humor. ÊBlogging and other forms of social media are changing corporate-think and driving a revolution in how companies do business.” Debbie Weil  Blogger and author of The Corporate Blogging Book  debbieweil.com Figure 1.50

In short, the blogosphere is clearly changing and although the stats are very clear the opportunity is great, there are severe problems to overcome from overpopulation and the increase of spam blogs.

…cont

Click Here To Read Part 2 of Traditional Blogs Are Dying- Long Run Projection Rates

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References

Figure 1.10 http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/

Figure 1.11 http://blog.spinn3r.com/2008/01/blog-ping-and-s.html

Figure 1.12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_blog

Figure 1.30 http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/the-what-and-why-of-blogging/

Figure 1.40 http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/the-what-and-why-of-blogging/

Figure 1.41 http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/blogging-for-profit/

Figure 1.50 http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/brands-enter-the-blogosphere/