Interesting research report from the Pew ‘Internet and American Life’ project. Summary:

A new, national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology.

Related surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the blog population has grown to about 12 million American adults, or about 8% of adult internet users and that the number of blog readers has jumped to 57 million American adults, or 39% of the online population.

These are some of the key findings in a new report issued by the Pew Internet Project titled “Bloggers”:

54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.

54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.

Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.

76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.

64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.

When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is “my life and experiences.”

Other topics ran distantly behind: 11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% focus on entertainment; 6% focus on sports; 5% focus on general news and current events; 5% focus on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.