According to statistics posted on the BlogWorld conference site, 12 million Americans maintain a blog - is that possible? I guess we all like to get our thoughts and opinions out there and hear from others. But 1.7 million list making money as one of the main reasons for keeping a blog. Hey, I think I'm missing something here!
Over 120,000 blogs are created every day. This is definitely information overload. But each one is a part of its own community - home schoolers, chihuahua raisers, artisan cheese makers, travel bloggers, fat bloggers, political bloggers, tech bloggers, scifi bloggers, our personal curiosities and our was of connecting with each other are endless. For adult educators, it's important that our learners understand this phenomenon, if they don't already. They can participate in it, become a part of and build national and international communities.
One more statistic, blog readers spend an average of 23 hours per week online. That sounds about right. Here's a chart of the number of unique visitors to the different blog hosts, comparing Q1 2004 to Q1 2005. Old numbers, but Blogger is still by far ahead of the crowd.
There are more blogs in Japanese than in English, but they are close, and far ahead of other languages, although it looks like all languages are participating. Chinese is third, with 8%.
Branka and I are doing a pre-conference session at CATESOL, and several other conferences, on blogging for language teaching and adult basic skills in general. The key is supporting learners to find their community of interest. There's something for everyone out there, and each person has their passions. The ability to connect with others who have the same passions is what got me excited about technology 15 years ago, and the root of it all is still the same.
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