Blog世界の今

英語で読むITトレンド

Technorati創業者のDavid Sifryの8/1、8/2のBlogを読むと、Blog世界全体の動き(主に英語圏)を把握することができる。
「State of the Blogosphere, August 2005, Part 1: Blog Growth」
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000332.html
「State of the Blogosphere, August 2005, Part 2: Posting Volume」
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000333.html
さてPart Iから読んでいこう。

As of the end of July 2005, Technorati was tracking over 14.2 Million weblogs, and over 1.3 billion links. Interestingly, this is just about double the number of blogs that we were tracking 5 months ago. In March 2005 we were tracking 7.8 million blogs, which means the blogosphere has just about doubled again in the past 5 months, and that the blogosphere continues to double about every 5.5 months.

7月末時点と3月末時点を比較して、Blogの数は「5.5ヶ月で2倍」というペースで増殖していることがわかる。ムーアの法則は「18ヶ月で2倍」なので、そのペースを遥かに上回っている。そしてBlogサービス提供者の競合状況としては、

MSN Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, AOL Journals, as well as a number of international hosted services are growing quickly, and use of software like WordPress and Movable Type to provide blogs continue to grow significantly. There's a growing number of WordPress-based hosted services that are arising, including Laughing Squid, Dreamhost, and Blue Host, marking an interesting trend - that of ISPs and hosting providers using the GPL'ed software as a differentiating feature of their services.

とあり、面白いのは「事実上の標準」っぽくなりつつあるSix Apart「Movable Type」の競合としてオープンソースのWordPressというソフトウェアが登場し「WordPress-based hosted services」業者が増えていることである。

Technorati is now tracking about 80,000 new weblogs being created every day, which means a new weblog is created about every second. About 55% of all blogs are considered active - that is, 55% of all weblogs have had a posting in the last 3 months. In addition, 13% of all weblogs (currently 1.8 Million blogs) update at least weekly.

また、一日に作られる新しいBlogは80,000。そのうちの55%がアクティブ(アクティブの定義は3ヶ月以内に更新があったこと)。そして全体の13%(180万)が週に一回は更新している。
さてPart IIでは、Blog自身の数ではなくエントリーの数に焦点が当てられている。

After a brief dip last winter, the average rate of postings has grown steadily such that at the end of July 2005, there were about 900,000 posts created each day. That's about 37,500 posts every hour, or 10.4 posts per second.

1日のエントリー更新数は90万。それは時間あたり37,500で、1秒あたり10.4更新となる。
面白いのはこのPart IIに添付されているスライド(グラフ)で、Blog更新量の推移と世の中の大ニュースが重ねてマッピングされているもの。

I always find it interesting to look at the spikes in posting volume as well, and see what they can tell us by looking at the number of posts around the current events that caused a significant reaction in the blogosphere. I've listed a few of them on the chart above, including the US political conventions last summer, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the Superbowl, Live8, and the London Bombings. Please note that the absolute number of posts is not indicative of importance of the event - remember that there are a lot more bloggers today than there were 6 months ago. However, it is very interesting to look at the percentage deviation from the norm that each spike represents - the bigger the relative spike, the more jarring the event was to the overall blogosphere.

日本のBlog世界はもっと私的で内向的で趣味的なものが多いから、大きなニュースと連関したこういうスパイクは出てこないのだろう。このあたりの違いが、ジャーナリズムやメディアがBlogを脅威と感じる度合いの違いになって現れる。
Part IIIはたぶん今日か明日更新で、タグの増殖についてがテーマ。興味のある人は、
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/
をチェックしてください。