What is a blog

Looking back at a previous entry entitled “Blog” (written on August 29th of last year), I came to the following conclusions through the help of Google and various sources:

*** 40% or less of the population within the United States has heard of a blog.
*** You are one of 50 million has read a blog or reads a blog on a regular basis.
*** Out of 694 Million People, the 11% (50 million) people who read blogs are more likely to do so from broadband internet connection.
*** Out of 694 Million People, 153,887,442 internet users in the U.S. use anti-virus programs
*** 650,000 use AOL
*** 1/3 of use broadband
*** 50,908,560 broadband users have not heard of a “blog”.

*** There are approximately 15-30 million blogs in the US alone.
*** That means at least 20 million people in the US have heard of a blog, even if they don’t write to one.
*** 20 million people to read 30 million blogs.

That’s 10 million blogs that are not being read. 10 Million blogs that are just sitting somewhere on a server, collecting virtual dust and losing value. Everyone’s voice matters… except for the voices of those 10 million blogs that aren’t being read.

But I could be wrong – maybe everyone reads 4 blogs on a regular basis. Or 5. This would be set up with a very simple example:

Blog A, Blog B, Blog C, Blog D.

Blog A reads blog B.
Blog B reads both Blog C and Blog D.
Blog C reads blog A, B, but not D.
Blog D only reads Blog B.

So while you have 1 person reading 2, and another reading 3, you have 2 people only reading 1.

I’ve always found it interesting to know exactly who blogs and who reads these blogs. If the number of blogs were to somehow outnumber the internet population, which blogs would be read and which blogs wouldn’t? Also taking into account that your average pay for blogging blogger will run multiple blogs at once – does this affect the numbers in any way? Does it somehow pad them to make it seem like more or less people blog and more or less people read these blogs?

The only problem I see with blogging is that for every 5 blogs, you’ll have 250 more saying the same thing (more or less). That’s a ratio of 50 to 1 on so-called “fresh content” (and then of course, 50 blogs spouting “not so fresh content”.) Could we consider this to be polluting the blogosphere?

Much like the ozone, is it, too, destined to disappear? Or will we eventually be able to determine the true limitations of blogging itself and find a way to push past the analogies, past the numbers, past the logic, past the determination of free choice, personal preference and sense of self, and somehow, at some point, come together and truly form a community?

Imagine – one blog being continually updated by every blogger on the planet. Every piece of information you could ever want right there at your fingertips, no matter how trivial in nature it is. Not a search engine, not a community site, but an entity, with the bloggers themselves comprising the veins and blood-flow that keep it alive.

So, I guess the only real question I have on my mind at this point is: do you blog?