The State of the Blogosphere, another excuse for people to misquote numbers

April 18, 2006

Love Dave Sifrys reports. Hate the fact that there are soooooo many people out there who don’t know the difference between tracked and actual and use these reports as being indicative of the entire blogosphere, like Mark Evans:

The latest installment of Dave Sifry’s State of the Blogosphere has appeared with few surprises – the blogosphere continues to double every six months (35.3 million and counting),

(Insert gong noise here). Nup, 35.3 tracked, not total. Try 200 million.

3 responses to The State of the Blogosphere, another excuse for people to misquote numbers

  1. Phew, did a quick check when I blogged that and I’m happy to say I didn’t fall for the misquote. 🙂

    I guess many folks simply assume Technorati is the be-all and end-all of blog tracking – when based on the numbers 35m/200m they only cover around 20% of what’s out there.

  2. Looking at data from bloglines users, we’ve concluded that

    – The feeds that really matter (FTRMs) are a very small fraction of blogosphere
    – FTRMs double each year, not each six months
    – Most users follow a modest number of feeds

    For details, see http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2006/04/18/preferential-attachment-in-feeds/

Trackbacks and Pingbacks:

  1. Tuesday Linkfest: April 18, 2006 » Technology, Blogging and Politics - April 18, 2006

    […] Dave Sifry of Technorati publishes an appropriately self-aggrandizing “State of the Blogosphere” but as Duncan points out, the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. […]