Another over-the-top blogging story

ET reports: "When Indians blog, they go the whole hog. Consider the 35% of India's overall population expressing themselves over weblogs. Or the fact that more women in India (51%) create and use blogs to give vent to their pent-up feelings."

Apparently we Indians blog 'the most' in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region - 5 times a week. "All this when 60% of India's bloggers are still labelled 'green' or nascent bloggers whose overall blogging experience is under a year."

These stats are courtesy mPulse, a survey conducted by Mindshare Insights Group in the Asia Pacific region among 1500 users in the 15-35 age group.

While I am happy that blogging is getting so much attention - and even being researched - many of the conclusions reached in this study just don't ring true. 35% of India's net user base is 10 MILLION people. Do we really have 10 million bloggers - or even 'readers' of blogs? I don't think so!

If we did, I could probably make a good living out of just writing a blog! Because Adsense earnings are directly proportional to the kind of traffic that comes into your site.

My estimate of number of blogs by Indians is 100,000-150,000. If you take 'readers' of blogs, you could take that up to half a million or so.

If one includes folks who land up at blogs because blogs show up quite strongly on google search, that number would go up substantially. But these are still, hardly folks who are 'expressing themselves through blogs'. Or even 'followers of blogs'. They're just tourists in the blogworld.

Perhaps I am being conservative, or ignorant. But even the organisers of the Indibloggies are saying there could be 3.5 million 'active bloggers' (they've quoted a Windows Livespace survey).

The same survey says 39% of internet users are 'aware' of blogs. (Which should be true, given the amount of media coverage blogs get!) Of course, awareness and usage are two different things altogether...

A couple of technical issues with the Mpulse survey:
- If the survey was conducted only among 15-35 age group that automatically excludes the 28% who fall outside that bracket.

So when we say 35% of India's OVERALL internet base is into blogs and blogging what we're actually saying is close to 50% of India's 15-35 year olds are bloggers. I don't believe that's true.

Maybe, in certain professions like media - or folks working in IT. Yes, in the JAM office practically everyone on the editorial has a blog/ has attempted to write one at some point. But the same does not hold true in marketing, or even in our web team.

The sample taken, I feel, may not have been representative of the general population. But more an 'early adopter' group.

- If 51% of women are using blogs to vent their 'pent up feelings'... where the hell are they? In the two years I have spent blogging I'd say men clearly outnumber women. Both among those who write blogs and those who comment on them.

And certainly not enough to merit a headline which goes 'Angry young women blogging it out."

Incidentally, the article carries a byline. I'm not sure why journalists must generally swallow survey results. Shouldn't they ocassionally play the skeptic?