Although restricted in their survey to the US, it is likely that these stats reflect a similar(if less pronounced) pattern elsewhere even though, as the survey report[pdf file] points out, the catalyst for this surge in US blog activity would appear to be the US Presidential election - 9% of internet users said they read political blogs “frequently” or “sometimes” during the campaign.

On blog creators (are you reading this Mick?), the survey reported that -
Blog creators are more likely to be:
• Men: 57% are male
• Young: 48% are under age 30
• Broadband users: 70% have broadband at home
• Internet veterans: 82% have been online for six years or more
• Relatively well off financially: 42% live in households earning over $50,000
• Well educated: 39% have college or graduate degrees

Meanwhile, you, kind(or otherwise) reader, are somewhat more of a mainstream group than bloggers themselves. Like bloggers, blog readers are more likely[but not by much if those other figures are to be believed] to be young, male, well educated, internet veterans. Still, since our survey February, there has been greater-than-average growth in blog readership among women, minorities, those between the ages of 30 and 49, and those with home dialup connections. - no apparent data published to define that growth though.

Only 32% of those asked felt confident that they knew what a blog actually was - Those who knew about blogs were well educated, internet veterans (about half of those with at least six years of experience knew what a blog is), and heavy users of the internet. In contrast, the internet users who did not know about blogs were relative newbies to the internet, less fervent internet users, and those with less educational attainment.

There's another question to be asked here, which the survey seems to ignore, but that I think would be interesting to see the answers to - What other sources of news and information do bloggers/readers frequently access? I'd suspect that the answers to that question would show why, especially in the US, the mainstream media is increasingly wary of the blogosphere - not simply because it's a growing audience, but because it's, primarily, part of the same audience reading both sources of information and comparing the two.

There is a significant caveat with all this, and, as you should expect, it's about the collection of data and margin of error - These results come from two nationwide telephone surveys conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project: One was in the field between November 4 and November 22 and involved interviews 1,324 internet users. It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. The other was conducted between November 23 and November 30 and involved interviews with 537 internet users. That has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.