The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports on Gallup and Pew research that finds that only 20% of Internet users read blogs. Not to impugn those fine research organizations but how the heck do they know? Do you really believe that if you asked average people about blogs that they would be able to identify Engadget.com or Boingboing.net as a blog? I can barely tell in some cases. According to whatis.com, a blog is a “personal journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.” If you believe that the average user can make that distinction, you’re smoking something.

A big reason that blogs are successful is because they’re indistinguishable from websites. Trying to measure their influence in terms of reader perception is ludicrous. We keep seeing this kind of research, but it makes no sense because it’s attempting to measure the unmeasurable.