April 29, 2003

Weblog Audience: 5 Million and Growing

Here are some quotes and notes from the PBS NewsHour story on weblogs, which aired last night:

"Weblogs have been dismissed by some as little more than soapboxes for the self-absorbed, while other see them as a new interactive form of participatory journalism." – Terence Smith, The NewsHour

"Narcissism, creativity and a desire to connect with like-minded people." – Joan Connell, blog editor for MSNBC.com, on what drives webloggers

"It is the opinion journalism weblogs, like Instapundit and AndrewSullivan.com that can and have made a difference in the public policy arena." – Terence Smith, The NewsHour

"When I first started writing my goal was actually to get myself to write, to try to become a better writer. I figured I could do it on the web and no one would see it. But over the years all of the sudden people started coming to the website." - John Irons, Assistant professor of economics at Amherst College, who writes a blog on economics at Argmax.com.

"I like weblogs because you get sophisticated political commentary in bite-sized chunks, and together with that you get the opportunity to correspond, in real time, with the writers. The whole process is just terrific. It's an absolute conversation between political and cultural commentators and their readers." – Washington DC attorney Dick Marshall, a regular reader of weblogs.

The number of weblog readers is estimated at 5 million people per day, and is growing. – Terence Smith, The NewsHour