What Brings Users to Blogs?

Billosaur writes "The Center for Citizen Media Blog has an interesting overview of the Collaborative News Survey 'Hype versus Reality', detailing the results of a study done by Hsing Wei from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government on why users are attracted to collaborative news, commenting and blogging sites. Among the conclusions of the study are that people who use these sites are 'mostly young and male, especially those who visit technology-related sites, looking for 'a fix of unique, informative fun,' and 'filling in the blanks' left by traditional news sources. Or is it just because it beats working?"

Comments

Make your voice heard.

[darcling]

On a "big news site" they give you the information. Period.

If they're wrong (in your opinion) or leave out important facts - too bad, they don't care about you. In a blog/comment arena you can interface directly with the author and flesh out the details, inaccuracies, or corroborate their work.

Community = Good.

I remember the daze...

[happy_place]

I remember when folks got online to share information about challenging technological problems... they exchanged code... and shared configuration tips... wanted to hear what other folks were doing... back in the daze of Usenet, you could find all sorts of folks from experts to beginners, and there was no deep psychological basis for those who stuck around to help... we were just glad to have them online... a bunch of nerds... Nowadays, we'd probably call these guys sickos needed to substitute their lack of self-esteem... blah blah blah... Could it be that some folks still do that? --Ray