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Survey Shows More Women Blogging Than Men 181

Posted by CowboyNeal from the ladies-choice dept.
thefickler writes "The blogosphere has hit the mainstream, according to a new survey, which reveals that 80% of Americans know what a blog is, 50% regularly visit blogs, and 8% publish their own blog. The survey also reveals that more women than men are bloggers, with 20% of American women who have visited blogs having their own versus 14% of men."
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Survey Shows More Women Blogging Than Men More

Survey Shows More Women Blogging Than Men

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  • they always talked more.

  • figures (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:43PM (#20419567)
    Chicks are all "yap yap yap" and dudes are like "why don't you go write in your blog, I'm trying to play Xbox".

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by kc2keo ( 694222 )
      I agree. Women yap a lot and its real annoying. I'd rather do what I do which is... -Download and watch porno -Do other hobbies like play video games, work on web site, and other shit -read Slashdot. I love to read slashdot every day. I've become a regular since a few months ago. I do not really respond as much as read the replies and articles. -I read the newspaper almost every morning (Comics, Some sports, business, and more deaths on highways that are local here. I287, 684...) -Sleep and eat -Reali

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jotok ( 728554 )
        So...you "have a life" (consisting of such amazing feats as sleeping and eating) as an alternative to talking? And women don't because they talk a lot. Wow.

        I think the icing on the cake here is that you just became a slashdotter. My friend, I don't think you'll have to worry about encountering women anytime soon.
    • Better all of you, than me!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by sacrilicious ( 316896 )
      Reminds me of that joke about Elaine and the horse etc [psc.edu].

  • That's Really Funny (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So one in ten people who knows what a blog is, HAS a blog.

    That's too many blogs.

    • I don't believe the stats, at all (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JonTurner ( 178845 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @10:32PM (#20419973) Journal
      I call total bullshit on these statistics.
      8% write their own blogs? Twenty million people?!? Impossible. No way, no how. Now maybe, just maybe 8% of some select subclass of internet users (e.g. 8% of people who spend more than 4 hours/day on the internet, have a college education, a median income greater than $####, own at least one foreign-made car, read WIred magazine, etc.) write blogs, but to think that many ordinary Americans are writing their own blogs... nope. I don't buy it.

      And if you doubt this for one moment, just try to remember the last time you stood in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. See how silly it seems thinking 4/5 of them could explain what a blog is? And to think nearly 1/10 writes their own? Nyet.

      • ... a median income greater than $####, ...
        Could you repost that, but this time expand the column so we can see the entire number?
         
      • Depends on what you count as a blog. I could easily believe nearly 1/10 people have used the "blog" feature on MySpace.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fymidos ( 512362 )
        > but to think that many ordinary Americans are writing their own blogs... nope. I don't buy it

        It is true, many many ordinary people around the world have a personal blog. This was an online survey, so the article is a little misleading: it is actually the 80% of internet users that "know what a blog is".

        The numbers of bloggers are definetely high though: According to www.technorati.com [technorati.com] there are more than 100 million blogs around the world. Even if many of them are dead, we are talking tens of

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by porcupine8 ( 816071 )
        Remember that "a blog" does not mean "a well-known blog" or "a blog that gets a lot of hits" or "a blog anyone but my three friends reads" or even "a blog that ANYONE reads." It just means any blog you write in - which includes everyone on LiveJournal and its children, plus the millions more on MySpace who use the blog function on there, plus blogger, wordpress, etc... 8% doesn't seem off at all to me. Hell, my MOM, who knows very little about computers, has a blog on 360.yahoo.com that she writes in once a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cheapy ( 809643 )
      But how many of them have blags [xkcd.com]?

  • I'd belive the stats (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) * on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:44PM (#20419585) Homepage Journal
    These stats seem to hold up with what i am seeing on the stats for Jonesblog [utah.edu] in that the majority of readers seem to be women looking for recipes [utah.edu] , pictures of animals [utah.edu] and interestingly, travel [utah.edu] while the majority of searches from males tend to be stuff like guns [utah.edu] , airplanes [utah.edu], cars [utah.edu] and an inordinate amount of traffic searching for hot women that somehow hit this page [utah.edu]. Stereotypes are sad, but true I suppose in some areas. The interesting thing that really surprised me was that I had to include a notice in my FAQ [utah.edu] on my "status" as I've had more than one unsolicited request for a date from visitors to the blog.

    • Re:I'd belive the stats (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Skadet ( 528657 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:51PM (#20419651) Homepage
      I think an interesting follow-up question is, "does more talking in real life equate to more blogging?". Sure there's correlation -- I think most of us will agree that women talk more than men -- but I wonder if the drive is similar between the two. . . In other words, does the mechanism that makes women blabber on also compel them to blog more? If so, what is that mechanism?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bkr1_2k ( 237627 )
        I think you'll find that more women keep "diaries" than men, which would be a better correlation. Most of the women I know that "blog" are actually treating it as an online diary that happens to get feedback from other people occasionally. Society has taught women to write down their secrets and feelings for a long time. Now that sites like myspace, facebook, livejournal, etc. have become popular it's no surprise that women are transitioning from private hard-copy diaries to semi-private online diaries.
      • Estrogen.
    • Stereotypes are arbitrarily decided; they have their roots in some truth somewhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tribbin ( 565963 )
      "while the majority of searches from males tend to be stuff like guns , airplanes , cars and an inordinate amount of traffic searching for hot women"

      Not especially in that order I guess?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GuitarKat ( 1150077 )
      Well, those stats are well done, but I guess I'm not the usual woman. I don't look for recipies and I don't look for animals. I suppose travel would be the remotely closest thing I could see myself looking for.

      I actually get feeds from /., Homestar Runner, Penny Arcade Comic feeds, Kawaii Not feeds, some poltical journals (mostly socialist/liberal) and stuff from my friends and ThinkGeek on their new products up on the store.

      You are right, BWJones, stereotypes are depressing. And no, sorry guys, I don't hav
      • Pics or GTFO!

        Kidding, kidding... put the mod points down.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Frankly, you post looked at from a slightly more abstract viewpoint indicates that you are "the usual " (i.e. stereotypical) woman. You have an explicitly feminine name "GuitarKat", you claim to be "socialist/liberal", you complain about stereotypes, and you have a belief that men want to see you "in a bikini". This suggests that you identify with your gender, you consider yourself kind-hearted (aka motherly), you have security issues regarding being placed in the very groups with which you identify yoursel
    • I think averages aren't actually stereotypes, though. The point when it becomes a stereotype and possibly sexist or racist is when it's extrapolated to "all X are/do/like Y" or the equivalent "you're an X, therefore you are/do/like Y". A lot of people extrapolate from statistics and averages to that, but it's that extrapolation that's the fallacy, not the statistic or average itself.

      E.g., consider this "most insects have 6 legs, spiders are insects, therefore spiders have 6 legs." The fallacy there is the i

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by baadger ( 764884 )

        E.g., consider this "most insects have 6 legs, spiders are insects, therefore spiders have 6 legs." The fallacy there is the implied extrapolation from "most" (i.e., a variant of "some") to "all", not the "most insects have 6 legs" premise.

        Actually there is no fallacy there since spiders are not insects. Spiders belong to the biological class "Arachnida" not "Insecta" unlike, say, common flies you will find about the home.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Weedlekin ( 836313 )
        "E.g., consider this "most insects have 6 legs, spiders are insects, therefore spiders have 6 legs." The fallacy there is the implied extrapolation from "most" (i.e., a variant of "some") to "all", not the "most insects have 6 legs" premise."

        The fallacy is the statement about spiders being insects. They're chelicerates, which is a distinct arthropod sub-phylum that's much older, and genetically distinct from the hexapods (which includes insects and other six legged arthropods such as diplura). As the name "
    • and an inordinate amount of traffic searching for hot women that somehow hit this page [utah.edu].

      Not so surprising; it has the words "squeeze" and "tube" in the very first paragraph!
  • that any article summary mentioning the word "blogosphere" resultants in your average slashdot reader to be 79.993093 more likely not to RTFA because the term "blogosphere" was mentioned. Seriously. Kill it with fire. I hate the word.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tribbin ( 565963 )
      "79.993093 more likely"

      Like in, almost eighty more people?

      Or eighty times as many people?

      Or eighty percent more?

      Or eighty million times more?

    • Re:Survey also shows... (Score:5, Funny)

      by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @11:38PM (#20420445) Homepage Journal

      that any article summary mentioning the word "blogosphere" resultants in your average slashdot reader to be 79.993093 more likely not to RTFA because the term "blogosphere" was mentioned. Seriously. Kill it with fire. I hate the word.

      Yes, let the word "blogoshphere" become a roadkill on the information superhighway, for the synergetic well-being of all netizens!

      Regards,
      --
      *Art

    • Seriously. Kill it with fire. I hate the word.
      That won't work. You have to nuke it from orbit. It's the only way you can really be sure.
    • ...mentioning the word "blogosphere" resultants in your average slashdot reader to be 79.993093 more likely not to RTFA...

      How about we just call it 80% for a "rough estimate"?

  • Good... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sgant ( 178166 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:49PM (#20419633) Homepage Journal
    Then hopefully it will STOP THEIR YAPPING all the time! Damn broads....

    Hang on, my wife is having me go wash the dishes....

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tribbin ( 565963 )
      Keep your personal frustrations for yourself; or start a blog.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sgant ( 178166 )
        Lol, it was a JOKE. Ok, not the best joke in the world, but I thought it was pretty obvious I was kidding. I see now it wasn't.

        Lighten up peeps.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tribbin ( 565963 )
          OMG this is funny :-)

          My reply was meant as a joke upon your joke.

          And because your post had a daring tone, I'd figured I could go with that.

          And looking back, it looks like I was the initiator of your post being interpreted as a troll.

          ASCII; the source misinterpretation.

          We have to fall back on our smileys. :-p
  • 100% of people who took this survey are likely to answer surveys, but how many people who don't answer surveys are likely to have blogs hmm?

  • Does myspace count as blogging? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by catbutt ( 469582 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:57PM (#20419715)
    Just curious.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ctrl-Z ( 28806 )
      Only if you're 14.

  • What? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZorbaTHut ( 126196 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:57PM (#20419717) Homepage

    The survey also revealed that more women than men are bloggers, with 20% of American women who have visited blogs having their own versus 14% of men.
    That does not prove what they're trying to indicate at all. That indicates "women who read blogs are more likely to have one of their own". It doesn't say squat about how many women actually have blogs - if there's five women out there who read blogs, and 100 men, then that's one female-run blog and 14 male-run blogs.

    Come on, guys. Get your facts straight.

  • Now for some more stats please. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Uno Due Tre ( 1150029 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:58PM (#20419725) Homepage
    What percentage of blogs are actually READ with a break-down of male/female? I think blogs by women who post a hot picture of themselves would possibly be a bit overrepresented. I know a few nerds who read a chick's blog just because she also happens to be a swimsuit model. Personally, I would prefer to read a blog that was actually interesting.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by JonTurner ( 178845 )

      I know a few nerds who read a chick's blog just because she also happens to be a swimsuit model.
      Yeah, right. And I'm guessing that would also be the same percentage who subscribe to Playboy "for the articles." (rolls eyes)

  • Summary says most women are men? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nymz ( 905908 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @09:59PM (#20419727) Journal
    What an insensitive summary, but I guess that's to be expected from the patriarchal and male-dominated Slashdot blog. So for the last time you unenlightend masoginists, Bloggers are male, and Bloghers [blogher.org] are female. Sheesh.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Belial6 ( 794905 )
      At first I thought you were kidding, but your sig really does link to a misandry site. If you were kidding, then you got me. If not, then I can hope that kind will be called out for being the bigots you are, just as other bigots have been in the past.

      • At first I thought you were kidding, but your sig really does link to a misandry site. If you were kidding, then you got me. If not, then I can hope that kind will be called out for being the bigots you are, just as other bigots have been in the past.
        "In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor." - Warren Farrell

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Belial6 ( 794905 )
          Ok, You got me... I guess I've seen too many people that are dead serious and say the same exact same thing in the exact same way. I though I might of heard something whizzing right over my head. Good to know it was a joke, and not a rock.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caluml ( 551744 )
      masoginists - wow, it's so wrong it hurts. Did you hear a new word yesterday? It's from Miso- hatred/dislike of, gyno- relating to women. Misogynist.

  • Wrong conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by panaceaa ( 205396 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @10:00PM (#20419743) Homepage Journal
    The body of the article states:

    "The survey also revealed that more women than men are bloggers, with 20% of American women who have visited blogs having their own versus 14 % of men."

    This does not equate to more blogger being women. If there are twice the number of males reading blogs than females, then given the above ratio, 40% more men would be blogging than women. Unfortunately this article doesn't tell us the number of males reading blogs versus females, so we can't draw any conclusion either way. And I'd guess that there's more men reading blogs based on my use of Slashdot and Digg, but I really have no broad data to back me up.

    The only thing this survey shows is that of blog readers who fill out surveys, females tend to blog more than males. And even then, the margin of error on a population size of 10,000,000 bloggers with their 1,000 user sample size is 3.1%. So the statistic is nearly meaningless ...

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by glavenoid ( 636808 )
      nice sig...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )
      The thing to bear in mind is some people consider a mypace page to be a blog, so it really depends on what they interpret as being a blog.

    • The only thing this survey shows is that of blog readers who fill out surveys, females tend to blog more than males.

      This is further skewed by the fairly well known fact that females, especially underage girls, have a higher rate of filling out surveys and taking quizzes and posting the pretty graphic of the results on their blogs. Females are far more talkative in real life, so it's small wonder why they act and interact on the Internet more, whether the medium is IMing, blogging, posting in forums, or wha

  • " Survey Shows More Women Blogging Than Men"

    On the intenet, men are men, women are men, and little kids are fbi agents.

    ... or dogs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tribbin ( 565963 )
      Everybody knows that feeling of betrayal; you are browsing porn and find pictures of a very hot girl, and the last three pictures show that the girl was actually a shemale.

      When you are a teenager, it takes a lot of confidence in your sexuality to not panic in silence.
  • ... people who say "blogosphere".

    Damn hippies.

  • Where does one draw a line between blog and "online diary"? I didn't notice a definition when I skimmed TFA. I would think that things like LJ skew the results quite a bit, since lots of teens are liable to hit up these sites and the post to them every once in a blue moon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TopShelf ( 92521 )
      I would think one criterion would be subject matter, being personal or not. I write about hockey [blogspot.com] online, and would definitely call that a blog, not an online diary...

  • Behind the counter (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tribbin ( 565963 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @10:34PM (#20419985) Homepage
    Very nice reading; a girl who in an entertaining way writes about her frustrations at Walmart.

    http://www.behindthecounter.com/ [behindthecounter.com]

    Just stumbled across it and like to share it.

  • Statistics (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tribbin ( 565963 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @10:42PM (#20420039) Homepage
    73.3 percent of all statistics are made up.

  • Surprising! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tribbin ( 565963 ) on Thursday August 30, 2007 @10:48PM (#20420089) Homepage
    Surprising how many men have blogs, considering that the ratio of men/women keeping diaries is, say 1/9.

  • "The Internet"...where men are men, and women... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "The Internet":
    Where men are men,
    Women are men,
    And all the children are undercover FBI agents.

  • Another survey confirms (Score:3, Funny)

    by theendlessnow ( 516149 ) * on Thursday August 30, 2007 @11:23PM (#20420337)
    Men are less likely to become pregnant than women.

    You heard it here first!

    Come on! Did somebody really have to do a survey to figure this one out?
  • ... blogs are the new attentive boyfriend who she can cheat with while she's with you. When YOU won't talk to them about their feelings because you really don't care about how horrible it was that her co-worker bought a pair of shoes just like hers after she had already shown hers off at work, she can go yap to a bunch of other estrogen driven goofballs who take that type of shit very seriously. Most of them will invariably be effeminate gay men who will pour their own pathetically wounded hearts into com
  • ...what percentage of either gender feels the overwhelming urge to vomit every time they hear the word "blogosphere"?
  • The survey also reveals that more women than men are bloggers, with 20% of American women who have visited blogs having their own versus 14% of men."

          Wrong. This just means that more American women who visit blogs have their own blogs. Please do not read more into the data than what is actually there.

  • Sexism on Slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)

    by postlude ( 1129605 )
    If the low intellectual tone of some of the comments in this thread are anything to go by, I would say that there are virtually no women using Slashdot, and to be honest, I can see why...

    • If the low intellectual tone of some of the comments in this thread are anything to go by, I would say that there are virtually no women using Slashdot, and to be honest, I can see why...

      Are you actually trying to argue that women are NOT more social than men? Yeah, the comments about yapping, gabbing, catty women are low-brow. That doesn't invalidate the basic point that women are more inclined to gossip. It's not sexist, it's truth. In other news, men have penises.

      That said, the survey is so complet

      • If the low intellectual tone of some of the comments in this thread are anything to go by, I would say that there are virtually no women using Slashdot, and to be honest, I can see why... Are you actually trying to argue that women are NOT more social than men? Yeah, the comments about yapping, gabbing, catty women are low-brow. That doesn't invalidate the basic point that women are more inclined to gossip. It's not sexist, it's truth. In other news, men have penises.

        But what the fuck you literal dickh

        • But somehow, writing comments on Slashdot is considered equivalent to partaking in a high-brow, intellectual conversation so Slashdot is "good" while discussing pie recipes on some blog is considered yappy. Well, check this stupid article and the fucking morons posting their boring gender-stereotyping jokes that they probably learnt from a porno-mag.

          You're a grizzled old hag, aren't you?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kripkenstein ( 913150 )

      If the low intellectual tone of some of the comments in this thread are anything to go by, I would say that there are virtually no women using Slashdot, and to be honest, I can see why...
      I haven't seen any such comments, simply because I browse at +5. I recommend other try it as well :)

  • 80% know what a blog is? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Friday August 31, 2007 @01:14AM (#20421021)

    I highly doubt it. Let me guess -- they conducted this survey ON THE INTERNET. So their sample is limited to exactly the same group of people who would probably know what a blog is. Somebody needs to re-take basic statistics...

    I could be wrong -- I can't RTFA because it's Slashdotted.

  • OK, so the conclusions in the article may be a bit off, although I'm not really surprised if women are more common bloggers. If I go beyond the geeky tech blogs, based on what I'm seeing here on e.g. Swedish blog community sites, there's an ocean of blogs out there and a whole lot seem to be ran by women. It's not exactly the gender ratio you see on sites like this one. :-p
  • Everyone seems to be caught up on the statistics (there are plenty of statistical errors the article makes, for sure). I don't know about a lot of you but I know far more girls that blog than guys that do. Let's face it, girls tend to be chatty and want to share details about what's going on with them. It probably sounds pretty gay but I actually enjoy reading their blogs more than guys'.

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