Weird article at The Street on AOL/ Weblogs Inc’s new blog strategy. Most of it is obviously factual, but all I can say is WTF!? to this quote (emphasis added by me):
AOL’s blog expansion comes as advertisers are becoming increasingly interested in reaching people who read and write the online journals because it lets them target their messages to audiences which are passionately interested in particular subjects. The blog audience of about 32 million remains a fairly small percentage of the overall Web users, which means that advertisers tend to buy ads on blog networks like AOL’s so they can reach the most people.
Since when is the sum total of all blog readers 32 million people? there is something like 1 billion people on the internet. Hundreds of millions of people read blogs, although they may not actually know they are reading them according to past surveys *the question of knowing what a blog is, even when they are reading blogs). So where in the world did 32 million come from? Is it a United States only figure, and if it is, since when was the US the be all and end all of the internet? Or is it merely a case of another lazy journalist?
Tags: The Street, AOL, Weblogs Inc
Good to call out the journalist on the potentially dodgy figures. I hope you follow up with the journalist and find his source.
Duncan, I’d say it’s lazy journalism with a touch of this “it’s only about America” attitude coming from the mainstream media – and hopefully no blog networks think that way.
But that would be okay, cause then the smart blog networks out there can target the rest of the world and reap the rewards.