Comments on: Those Idle Canadians

By: af

af — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:58:31 +0000

Back on a serious note, the second table is probably way off, especially the bias towards Live Spaces, in our 6 months at TGB we have yet to come across any blogger joining using Live Spaces, it may be true if you were looking at the social networking angle but then you need to throw MySpace etc into the mix.

By: Bob Boydston

Bob Boydston — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:28:12 +0000

In a study I read some time ago (can’t remember where or when) it noted that those who live in colder climes tend to be more connected “Internettedly” like Finland, Sweden and Norway.
So, I’m not surprised about Canada. For the US, one would have to break it up by states, really. The south I presume would be very low with the East and West Coasts on par with any of the higher numbers here.

By: Geof

Geof — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 09:30:11 +0000

I must agree about the poor state of Canadian media. I live in a city (Vancouver) in which three of the daily newspapers are owned by a single company. The fourth, The Globe and Mail, is somewhat better, but nevertheless so inadequate that I have neglected to reactivate my subscription following a recent move.

I wouldn’t claim this applies to anyone else, but I think I’m better off not reading the newspaper, listening to the radio, or watching TV news. That time is better spent reading books and blogs. They and The Economist fill me in on important happenings.

For what it’s worth, I believe Canada’s population is more concentrated (almost all in the south) and more urban (over 80%, however that’s measured).

By: Matt Devlin

Matt Devlin — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:55:52 +0000

News media is pretty diabolical in Canada. It’s one of the reasons that I’m reluctant to move back there.

Is Windows Live benefiting from family photo-sharing?

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:15:33 +0000

I would have a tendency to agree with Vernon, Ian. My theory would be that there’s just so much content and so many sources of content in the U.S. when compared with Canada that Canadians may be more likely to turn to blogs — and it’s also possible that lots of Canadians online feel overwhelmed by U.S. media as well, and are looking for alternative sources of content and information. Hard to say for sure, of course.

By: Ian Delaney

Ian Delaney — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 23:08:05 +0000

That’s great corroboration of the ‘more Canadians’ idea. You lot do seem to be all over the place!

On the platforms. Yeah. I wonder if the research was maybe conducted through MS and Google to result in the big numbers for Live Spaces and Blogger.

By: Vernon Lun

Vernon Lun — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 22:59:16 +0000

Lies, damn lies, I tell you!

To be fair, TheGoodBlogs statistics may not be truly representative of what’s out there since our sample is still relatively small. However for what it’s worth, in terms of absolute visits, US (64%), Canada (18.5%), UK (4.88%), Germany (1.94%), France (1.75%), Australia (1.46%), India (1%) and the rest is less than 1%.

What does seem to correlate though is if I apply the absolute numbers against the number of internet users per country (obtained on http://www.internetworldstats.com), it shows me that Canadians with Internet access is almost 2.5 times more likely to visit blogs than their US counterparts. I found nothing to that substantiate the other countries like Spain etc.

Anecdotally, (tongue-in-cheek of course) I think it means that the US have better alternative channels of entertainment like better cable and satellite TV, more online shopping opportunities, better shopping malls and recreational distractions than us poor sods up north! We rely on keeping each other company online when we’re snowed in and frequent blogs in the hope that someone will be our friend!

You’ve inspired me to write a book called ‘The Blog Next Door’

By: Ian Delaney

Ian Delaney — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 22:14:23 +0000

I think the *only* Live Spaces blog I’ve read, ever, is Maryam Scoble’s. But, you know, I’ve also heard bold claims about the growth rate of that platform.

I’ve pinged Dr. Lun to see what he says.

By: Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 22:07:49 +0000

Ian - totally agree re: anecdotal just seems odd that it would essentially be invisible. The one Live spaces blog recently I’ve seen was this AM and it was by someone who works for MS.

I wonder if it comes down to a personal/professional mix again as your International blogging post the other day illustrated. I largely use blogs for professional / business oriented topics rather then personal so my subscriptions are heavily skewed that way as well.

MySpace is a good example as it’s something I almost never encounter (thank god.)

By: Ian Delaney

Ian Delaney — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:56:37 +0000

It’s really hard to judge from anecdotal evidence, or what we see our fiends use.

If it was down to that then MySpace, bebo etc. would be nowhere as far as my own personal network is concerned. yet I’m pretty confident both those sites do OK.

It would be great to see some independent research on blog platforms. comScore normally seem pretty good, but I would agree that no typepad or wordpress doesn’t match up to experience.

I wonder if Vernon Lun has some idea - very small sample, but interesting, nonetheless.