NEWS: Surveys Say Bloggers Not Yet Big For Mainstream

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released March 11 found 56% of 1,008 adults surveyed have no knowledge of blogs. Even among Internet users, only 32% said they are very or somewhat familiar with blogs. Only 3% read a blog every day. On the other hand, 27% of U.S. Internet users, or 32 million people, have visited a blog site.

Another report, "The State of the News Media," said blogs have potential.

It also said, "They are still experiencing growing pains that will force them to live up to the highest standards of ethics and responsibility -- not to mention dealing with unwanted lawsuits for posting unwanted publicity -- if they are to become a central part of the online media experience."

This report, by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, said 2004 would likely be seen as a turning point in the evolution of blogs.

According to the two research reports, bloggers get almost all of their news from the mainstream media, rather then breaking news themselves.

The most popular Web sites for news and information remain those run by traditional media outlets, and by a large margin.

The 20 biggest media companies own half of the biggest news sites. A separate survey by Pew Research, an independent opinion research group, found that 71% of people who get news from the Web do not stop using other sources. They just add the Internet blogs as another news source.

Of 19.3 million blogs that have been created, 13.1 million have been abandoned, the firm says. Fewer than 50,000 blogs are updated daily, the firm says.

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