by Scott Ott
(2004-03-01) -- According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, writing weblogs (or blogs) is not nearly as popular as once believed. In fact it's a "fringe-group activity" like reading USA Today, or watching CNN.
Only about two percent of Internet users (roughly 2.4 million persons) actually write blogs, which means that creating blog content is only about as common as reading USA Today, the largest circulation daily paper in the country with 2.6 million readers. To look at it another way, the number of bloggers is about equal to the combined circulation of The New York Times (1.6 million) and The New York Daily News (805,000).
"It's really pathetic," said an unnamed researcher who worked on the Pew study. "After several years and a lot of hype, blog writers are still just a tiny fraction of the population. The number of bloggers is only a little bit higher than the combined primetime viewership of CNN and MSNBC. If I were a blogger, I'd be ashamed to be engaged in such a peculiar activity."
Glenn Reynolds, a blogger whose name has appeared in every article ever written about blogging, said, "I'm saddened...saddened and dismayed. I really thought blogging would catch on."
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