BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

How many?

19 comments on How many?

How many?

: For the record, the Paper of Record messed up Technorati’s statistics on the number of blogs in its story yesterday. They said:

The number of bloggers has grown quickly, thanks to sites like blogger.com, which makes it easy to set up a blog. Technorati, a blog-tracking service, has counted some 2.5 million blogs.

Of course, most of those millions are abandoned or, at best, maintained infrequently. For many bloggers, the novelty soon wears off and their persistence fades.

Wrong. Those are blogs that are regularly updated. A proportion of new blogs are abandoned, as I explained to the reporter in email (emphasis added):

A good source is Technorati, which tracks blogs for links. At http://www.Technorati.com you’ll see that they are now tracking more than 2.4 million blogs. At the Personal Democracy Forum at the new school today, Micah Sifry quoted his brother, David Sifry, founder of Technorati, with the latest stats: They track 12,000 new blogs a day (up from 3k last March); a third of those new blogs will go stagnant (no new post in three months); the other two thirds add up. The number is growing fast.

Pew also did a study. Note, though, that its study came from figures gathered last year and the number grew considerably since. See these posts:

https://buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_03_02.html#006406

https://buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_03_03.html#006414

https://buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_03_01.html#006398

You are way, way safe saying there are more than 2.5 million. There are actually many more than that but they are tracked with ongoing content. If you need anything more at all, don’t hestitate to ask.

The Times made it sound as if it’s 2.5 million and dropping. They also found the lowest numbers they could find (Pew has bigger numbers than Jupiter, which they quote, but Pew didn’t fit in with their agenda.)

Smells like this deserves an Official Times Correction.

When I first got called on the story — by the intern not the reporter — they were on the track of the bloggers-are-nuts-in-bathrobes and I lectured him, saying that’s wrong and insulting and blind to the real story. They did at least include a quote of mine defending bloggers against the instastereotype. But They were setting out to make fun of and belittle the medium.

Scoff at your own risk, Times.

(They also got the description of my day-job company wrong. And I wouldn’t have minded a link, guys.)

: UPDATE: Considering the apoplexy of some in the comments, I am getting some clarification on the stats and will pass on what I find. If I’m wrong, of course, I’ll say so.

: UPDATE AND CORRECTION: I was wrong about an important aspect of this: I had understood from Dave Sifry when he spoke to ETech that Technorati dropped blogs from its count when they did not update in three months. I’m now told (and a commenter confirms) that this is not the case; Technorati still tracks the total. So I was wrong about that.

The actual count of current links from blogs is a different matter; it counts links from the home page of a blog, I’m told, and that is why the number of links to an individual blog can go down and up.

The commenter still says that The Times story is wrong but I leave that to them to discuss. My understanding that the count at Technorati was cleaned was not correct and so I’ll be the one to make the correction here.

19 responses to “How many?”

  1. Tom (American Voter) Avatar
    Tom (American Voter)

    UDude, what do you expect? You remember that “Rumsfeld bans digital cameras” story that got started because some reporter couldn’t figure out that a site called “The Daily Face” was satire? If they can’t get something like that right how does anyone expect them to understand somethinh that requires actual math skills? I really think you over estimate the news medias ability to report facts.
    http://www.thedailyfarce.com/world.cfm?story=2004\05\world_moreabusepictures_05200400006

  2. Glenn Fleishman Avatar
    Glenn Fleishman

    I was peeved, too, by the inaccuracy in counting dead blogs. I mean, you’ve got a tool like Technorati that’s objectively looking at posting updates, and it’s misrepresented.

  3. mm Avatar
    mm

    I think you’re blowing this out of proportion. Why would the Times have an “agenda” regarding reporting the number of blogs out there?

  4. george Avatar
    george

    The article says: “Jeff Jarvis, president of Advance.net, a company that builds Web sites for newspapers and magazines…”
    Advanace.net says: “Advance.net’s companies build premier independent brands on the Internet, with long-term real value that extend Advance Publications, Inc.’s consumer franchises into the online medium.”
    It also lists Jarvis as President & Creative Director.
    So, what’s the problem? Sounds like they got it pretty much right. Advance.net makes online sites & brands for its publications.

  5. george Avatar
    george

    Oh, and maybe you didn’t get a link becuase the intern didn’t like being “lectured” at… :)

  6. fiat lux Avatar
    fiat lux

    Seems to me the Grey Lady has a vested interest in belittling blogs, because the better blogs can make their reporting look bad in many ways.
    Just one example: More and more I find the really intertesting news hitting the blogosphere a day or more before the “big media” picks it up.

  7. tony Avatar
    tony

    at least they didnt say you had a girlfriend, when you were clear with them that the young woman in your bed was definately Not your girlfriend, she was simply a girl in your bed…
    sheesh!

  8. Yogi Berra Avatar
    Yogi Berra

    short version of this post:
    You didn’t link to me. Pout.

  9. Dexter Westbrook Avatar
    Dexter Westbrook

    “The Times made it sound as if it’s 2.5 million and dropping.”
    Says you. The Times story reads as if 2.5 million is a minimum number of blogs — an impressive number, whether or not it counts those that are regularly updated. But then, my interpretation doesn’t fit with your agenda.
    Anyone who would start a blog, I would assume, would also have a habit of reading them, which makes for a good-sized reader audience.
    The New York Times’ description of Advance.net is better and easier to understand than the jargony, self-serving one on Advance.net’s Web site.
    “Pew didn’t fit in with their agenda.” Geez. I’ve got a black helicopter and tinfoil hat I’d like to sell you.
    What was interesting about your post, however, is the reference to an “intern.” Is the intern Tim Gnatek, the person listed at the end of the story?
    If so, it’s another affirmation (the most well-known one being Rick Bragg) that the Times uses interns to do the real reporting legwork on stories. Why did Katie Hafner, whose byline is at the top of the story, need help from an intern for reporting a feature story about blogs? If this were a breaking news story I could understand it, but geez, why can’t Ms. Hafner do her own work?

  10. Yogi Berra Avatar
    Yogi Berra

    Jeffo, looks like you really screwed up in your criticism. You take the Times to task for not quoting you correctly about the number of blogs logged by Technorati. But the Times was accurate. Take a look at the front page of Technorati (http://www.technorati.com), which says that:
    2,513,964 weblogs watched.
    Yes, I suppose that 2.5 million is indeed more than 2.4 million, as you claimed. But the Times number was more accurate than your number.
    The other stats regarding the number of blogs that are dropped also came from Technorati. Sorry your nose got out of joint by the Times not acknowledging you as King of All Bloggers, but the correct thing to do was to get the accurate information directly from Technorati — WHICH THE TIMES DID.
    By contrast, you are relying on something you remember from a conference stated by the brother of someone else. Hearsay, dude — if a reporter came into the newsroom of a Conde Nast newspaper (and let’s not forget that you are indeed a media insider with Conde Nast, Jeffo) and said they had a great story based on unverifiable third-hand information, they’d (rightfully) be laughed out of the office. Is your ego so large that you think the Times should have relied on your data and not gotten the correct information DIRECTLY from Technorati?
    The Times wasn’t wrong — you were. Heck, you were even wrong about your own title and the Times’s description of it.
    This is why blogs are an inaccurate medium: a close reading of your ranting and raving shows that you weren’t even close to accurate.

  11. Stephen Silver Avatar
    Stephen Silver

    It seems the Times gets the blog phenomenon wrong every time they write about it. Maybe a year from now they’ll publish a long mea culpa, which won’t mention Judith Miller either.

  12. Yogi Berra Avatar
    Yogi Berra

    > If so, it’s another affirmation (the most well-known one being Rick Bragg) that the Times uses interns to do the real reporting legwork on stories. Why did Katie Hafner, whose byline is at the top of the story, need help from an intern for reporting a feature story about blogs?

  13. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Yogi:
    Try some remedial reading comprehension. The Times said that “most of those millions” that Technorati tracks are abandoned. That is not true. One third of NEW blogs are abandonded. The 2.5 million Technorati tracks (which increased to that number SINCE I gave the numbers to The Times) are active and growing. The Times makes it seem as if they are shrinking. You are wrong, Yucko.

  14. Mike Sanders Avatar
    Mike Sanders

    I dunno – I think the Times really captured the blogging experience of the B C & D-listers. And as much as I respect Jeff, I think he is still “Buzzing in Blogger High”. And for an A-Lister like Jeff, that buzz may well continue forever – G-d bless him.

  15. Dexter Westbrook Avatar
    Dexter Westbrook

    You say the Paper of Record messed up, but you have no proof of that whatsoever — aside from your erroneous statement that the Times story implies the number of blogs is shrinking.
    Oh, and those Technorati numbers “that I gave to the Times.” I assure you, they didn’ need you to give them numbers from Technorati or anyone else.
    Try to be less self-important next time.

  16. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    My, my, I haven’t seen such eager defense of The Times in the blogosphere…. ever.
    But I, too, defend and appreciate The Times. In this case, though, I defend blogs against this story’s effort to dismiss them.

  17. Glenn Fleishman Avatar
    Glenn Fleishman

    The Times story says: “Of course, most of those millions are abandoned or, at best, maintained infrequently.” I think there’s a dispute over whether “abandoned” and “dropping” (Times, Jeff Jarvis, respectively) mean “lights out” or “not updating.”
    So perhaps the clearer statement would be: The New York Times said that most of the 2.5 million-odd blogs out there are abandoned or infrequently updated, while Technorati’s own numbers show that about half are regularly updated, and a subset of those are probably often.

  18. Richard Ault Avatar
    Richard Ault

    Yogi, Jeff, et. al.
    Let me first disclose I work for Technorati. In that capacity let me clarify the points made in Katie’s story.
    We are tracking over 2.5 Million weblogs/sites.
    Of that whole, there is definitely a group that haven’t updated in the past three months. This is not to say that they are “abandoned” (for many there is no 404 when you visit). It is true that many haven’t updated in past three months (I wonder what the average frequency of update is across all web sites?).
    In this light, if Technorati was the source (and I say that because I know the information was not requested *directly* from Technorati), then the story is innaccurate.
    Regardless, there is some debate to be had as to the state many of these weblogs are in. So how many of those are inactive? How many of those are abandoned?
    I can tell you that the blogsphere is definitely expanding.
    And wrt Katie’s story, I find it disappointing (and weakly sensational). Clearly not akin to the kind of reporting I expect from the NYT.

  19. John Anderson, RI USA Avatar
    John Anderson, RI USA

    I also wonder how many of those abandoned blog sites are like mine. I wanted to post a comment on a site under blogspot, and couldnt unless I opened a blogspot’site of my own because “this site does not allow anonymous comments.”
    I read a lot of blogs (about 200 daily, over 1000 weekly, more upon occasion) but am not interested in blogging myself. It’s nice to be able to put up pics (I think – haven’t tried it yet in BS) but Sony offers free picture posting. Maybe BS will allow me to put up more text, but I am annoyed with being dragooned.