Freedom of Speech

Are Blogs a "real" media?

Is a blog a way to Advertise?

Or create Public Relations?

Or Market yourself?

The answer is yes to all of the above.

Locally, we have over 1300 blogs on the blogger.com network that call Fort Wayne home. My guess is that there are only 300 of those blogs that are active. Some are personal in nature. Some are political. Some are geared to a hobby. Some are connected to a business. However, there are some important facts about blogs and the internet. The TV writers strike drove even more people to alternative forms of entertainment and you are looking at the medium that gained the most. The Web.

Newspapers are continuing their decline as they adapt to the demands of their readers and advertising clients by increasing their web presence.

Former Newscaster Keith Edwards started blogging after leaving Indiana's News Center last year. Watch election coverage on CNN and the other networks and have your laptop fired up so you can chime in the discussion.

The free speech that was once limited to those that had a transmitter, or printing press is now available to anyone with an internet connection.

This blog has been linked to by the Wall Street Journal and other national news sources. And do you know what my cost for developing this site along with the others that I maintain is? Next to nothing dollar-wise. Time and a little bit of know-how is my primary investment.

So, who Blogs?

Look at this from BIG Research:

Study: Bloggers Younger, More Educated and Ethnically Diverse

Bloggers are younger and better educated but earn less than the general U.S. adult (18+) population - and they are more likely to be single, male, and actively engaged in new media, according to a study by BIGresearch.

Of those who blog occasionally or regularly (26% of the population):

• 53.7% are male.
• Nearly half (44.7%) are married.
• One in 10 (10.4%) are students.
• 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position.

Bloggers have a lower average income than most adults ($55,819 vs. $56,811) and are better educated (14.3 years of education vs. 14.2).

They also tend to be younger, with an average age of 37.6, compared with 44.8 for the US adult population:

Media Use

Use of new media and technology is more prominent among bloggers:

Yet bloggers also rely on traditional media, with magazines ranking as the highest trigger for an online search, cited by 51.6%, followed by reading articles and watching broadcast TV:

Ethnicity

Ethnic minorities are highly represented among bloggers:

• 12.2% of bloggers are African American/Black (compared with 11.4% of the general population)
• 20% are Hispanic (vs. 14.8).
• 3.7% are Asian (vs. 2.0%).

White/Caucasians are 76.1% of all adults, but among those who blog regularly or occasionally, just 69.7% are white.

Political Affiliation

Of all registered voters, 24.6% say they regularly or occasionally blog. Of these:

• 37.6% are Libertarians.
• 26.9% are Democrats.
• 25.7% are Independents.
• 22.9% are Republicans.

“Bloggers are a diverse group and not who you would expect,” said Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch. “This diversity provides political bloggers with a forum to discuss issues or maybe be influenced by others, while candidates have an opportunity to reach interested voters.”

About the survey: The Simultaneous Media Survey (SIMM 11), from which this data is culled, polled 15,727 participants. It is conducted bi-annually. A summary of the blogger-related findings are available via BIGresearch.

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