0 thoughts on “Input appreciated for blogger survey”

1. I wish there were questions aimed at people’s commenting behavior on blogs that they don’t necessarily “contribute (“post”) to. I don’t know about others, but some of my best and most interesting writing takes place in the comments of others blogs and it’s a huge part of my blog experience.

2. I agree with Scott. “Contribute” is an ambiguous word. I think you should say “write” (vs. commenting which is also considered blogging by many). Throughout, I think you need to be very clear about what is blogging and capture accurately people’s commenting behavior on others blogs as separatge from writing their own blog.

3. Thanks for the helpful advice! Please keep the suggestions coming.

4. It’s not because you don’t contribute to blogs, that you don’t read them. Therefore I would suggest not to ‘terminate’ if you answer ‘no’ to the first question. Possibly this could give you an idea of how many are ‘lurking’.

5. Liz here from I Speak of Dreams I came here via Jojo; I’m sending it out to my non-A-list blog friends and my using-blogs-for-education friends.

   Blogging is like frozen desserts: so many recipes, so many flavors.

6. Good point about not filtering out commenters. Maybe I’ll try to make a distinction between commenting and blogging.

   If you leave an e-mail address, I’ll notify you personally when the survey is live.

   Paul

7. Paul,

   The comments about blog posts versus comments are good. What about a question around blogs and work, are people who blog personally more likely to be involved in blogging a their place of business?

   Kevin

8. Paul,

   #7, Why do you blog? Consider the following:

   1) To help you stay up to date in your field

   2) Maybe something about promoting your company, as opposed to simply “career advancement.”

9. I think the part that is interesting is what motivates people to blog, and how do you make money.

   You also might ask them if making money is important. But here you need to distinguish between people who blog for a company or are otherwise compensated for blogging and those who are self-employed

10. Paul, I think some in the blogosphere have been tainted by surveys about blogging. We’re still awaiting results from the “MIT Weblog Survey.”
    See my follow-up to a follow-up at https://www.bostonist.com/archives/2006/01/17/weblog_survey_data_redux.php

    Good Luck!

11. Paul,

    you may find it wise to define “regularly” in question 4 in order to get good data from that question.

    I’m afraid that I don’t have suggestions for other options for question 7 off the top of my head, but I don’t think you’ve captured the motivations of many political bloggers there.

    Have you considered asking a question about trackbacks in addition to your RSS question (9)? E.g., does your blog software support trackbacks? Do you regularly send trackbacks?

    On question 13, you might want to provide examples with the answer options. I’m not sure, for example, that Facebook users mentally categorize the site as “social networking.”

    Do you want an option for (BBS-style) forums/fora in question 13? They’re hardly web2.0, but they’re certainly social media in the true sense.

    Are you familiar with the results of Blogads.com’s 2006 reader survey? The information is here: https://weblog.blogads.com/comments/P1246_0_1_0/

    Based on the patterns emerging from their 56,000 responses, you may want to add education level and income to your demographic questions.

    You may also do well to include a multiple choice question on the type of blogging software / platform that people use, with an “other” option and a free-answer followup, so you can sort your data; or, define what you mean by “blogging.” Are you planning on considering responses from people who use LiveSpace and Xanga? MySpace? If a site is on a standard blog platform, but the comments are disabled, do you consider that a blog?

    I’m very happy to direct bloggers (business, political, and women) to the survey when it is live; please drop me a line at d2kd3k at gmail dot com –and I’d love to see the results.

    Best wishes on a tremendous project!

    Shaula Evans
    https://www.bopnews.com
    https://www.agonist.org

12. I would like one about the future of blogs…do you believe blogs will increase in influence in 1,3, 5 years….and also do you see blogs relacing your website

13. I agree that more options are needed for #7. For example, I am not “required” to blog for work but I have chosen to do it as part of my job. I’d speculate that few people are “required” to do it.

    It might also be interesting to understand how much time people spend reading others’ blogs. i thikn you captured how long people spend writing but for me the big time commitment is reading/commenting. I agree with others comments on separating out writing on ones own blog and commenting on other blogs.

    It might also be interesting to know what tools people use to track the reach of their blogs (technorati, etc.) and *whether* they assign metric goals to their blogs (and maybe even how many views they get on a monthly basis).

    And for the question that asks what kind of credibility one assigns to blogs, you might want to ask what makes a blog credible.

    Results should be interesting.

14. Hi, Paul,
    In #3, how about a category for News blogs?

15. 1. Do you contribute to one or more weblogs?
    Yes
    No (terminate)

    Define Contribute. Seperate question as to do you participate by commenting on one or more blogs? and do you own one or more blogs?

    2. How long have you been blogging?
    Less than one year
    One to two years
    More than two years

    3. To what types of blogs do you regularly contribute? Please check all that apply.
    Business
    Corporate
    Entertainment
    Hobbyist
    Literary/art
    Personal
    Political
    Reference
    Sports
    Technical
    Other

    Is other going to be a fill in the blank? What about humor as a distinct category, such as news parody blogs? How about social good blogs like missing children blogs or one I run on mostwantednewspaper.com? There are a lot of other categories.

    4. How many blogs do you regularly contribute to?
    1
    2
    3
    More than 3

    I’d say the define contribute thing applies here as well.

    5. Approximately how many hours do you spend writing for blogs every week?
    Less than one
    One to three
    Three to five
    More than five

    6. Approximately how many blog entries do you post in an average week across all blogs to which you contribute?
    Less than one
    One or two
    Three to five
    More than five

    Need a more than 10 and a more than 20 category here at least.

    7. Why do you blog? Please check all that apply
    Capture memories
    Career advancement
    Connect with people with similar interests
    Employer requires it
    Influence market or discussion of a topic
    It just feels good
    Keep in touch with family/friends
    Make money/hope to make money
    Other

    Again, here other should be a fill in the blank I think.

    8. How many blogs do you read at least once per week?
    Fewer than five
    Six to ten
    11 to 20
    21 to 30
    More than 30

    9. Do you subscribe to RSS feeds?
    Yes
    No
    Don’t know

    10. How do you believe your reading of blogs has affected your consumption of mainstream media such as television, radio and newspapers? Has your use of mainstream media:
    Increased substantially
    Increased somewhat
    Neither increased or decreased
    Decreased somewhat
    Decreased substantially
    Don’t know

    11. In your opinion, how credible are the blogs that you read regularly?
    Very credible
    Somewhat credible
    Not very credible
    Not at all credible
    Don’t know

    12. In your opinion, how credible are blogs in general?
    Very credible
    Somewhat credible
    Not very credible
    Not at all credible
    Don’t know

    13. In which of the following social media activities or services do you also regularly participate ?

    File sharing
    Instant messaging
    Multiplayer games
    Photo sharing
    Podcasting
    Social bookmarking
    Social networks
    Video blogging
    Wikis
    Other

    14. In which ways do you derive income from your blog? Please check all that apply
    I don’t derive income from blogging
    Affiliate commissions (ex: Commission Junction)
    Consulting
    Contextual advertising (ex: Google AdSense)
    Donations
    Paid writing assignments
    Product sales
    Speaking
    Other

    15. In the space below, please describe your most important motivations for blogging

    Tell us about yourself.

    16. Are you male or female?
    Female
    Male

    17. How old are you?
    Under 18
    18-25
    26-35
    36-45
    46-55
    56-65
    Over 65

    18. Where do you live?
    North America
    South America
    Europe
    Asia
    Australia/New Zealand
    Africa

    [Optional] Please list the URLs of all blogs to which you regularly contribute

    That old define contribute thing again here.

    [Optional]If you would like to be notified when results are available, please enter your e-mail address. This address will be used only to notify you of the availability of survey results.

16. Paul, I think you need more on “why people blog” — I’d love to know how many people start blogging as a result of peer pressure, reading Naked Conversations, wanting more google juice.. etc.
    I also wonder what types of postings are most common — simple links, observations, rants, etc.

17. Paul, I think you need more on “why people blog” — I’d love to know how many people start blogging as a result of peer pressure, reading Naked Conversations, wanting more google juice.. etc.
    I also wonder what types of postings are most common — simple links, observations, rants, etc.

18. 2 comments:
    Re feeds, would be interesting to know how many feeds people monitor (using RSS) versus read regularly. Example — I monitor nearly 300, but I don’t read them all, all the time.

    Re: make money, not sure you’ve captured the brand building component — when blogging doesn’t deliver direct revenue, but has a reputational effect that perhaps does. You, the soft fuzzy stuff that is really hard to measure 🙂

19. Add to type of blog category:
    nonprofit organizations

20. So many great suggestions! Thanks, everyone. I’ll let you know when the final survey is ready. And thanks to those of you who went ahead and sent me answers to the questions, despite the lack of a simple forms interface!