ANATOMY
OF A BLOG READERSHIP
by
Antonio C. Antonio
August
11, 2014
Creating my Blogsite (http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/)
was for this purpose: “This blogsite contains articles, papers and reports on
the subject of environment and natural resources management together with
economic development and human interest stories every now and then. This blogsite intends to provide
thought-provoking perspectives to increase the level of awareness on
environmental issues and concerns aimed at inspiring individual and/or
collective action towards protecting Mother Earth.” (Antonio, 2014) It is easy to discern that the blogsite is
largely dedicated to environmental matters and concerns. After four months, 135 articles and almost
3,200 pageviews, it may be a good exercise to look back and evaluate what has
been going on so far.
THE MOST READ ARTICLES:
The top 10 most read articles are: (1) Achievements of the Earth Summit;
(2) An Inconvenient Reality; (3) Climate Change; (4) Masdan ang Bukas Ko (The
Making of an Environment Advocacy Song); (5) Causes of Deforestation; (6) The
Benefits We Derive From the Forest; (7) Angry Birds; (8) Posting Trash; (9) We
Hate!; and, (10) Four Generations of Iskolars ng Bayan. Two of these articles
are technical papers about the environment, seven are about a variety of environmental
matters and two are social studies in nature.
PERCENTAGE
OF READERS PER COUNTRY: Here are the
percentages of blog readers per country:
Philippines (32%), United States (26%), Saudi Arabia (10%), Iraq (6%),
Russia (3%), Germany (3%), Indonesia (1%), China (1%), United Kingdom (1%),
Vietnam (1%) and others (16%) Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile,
Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New
Zealand, Poland, Qatar, Singapore, Romania,
Slovakia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates.
OBSERVATIONS: Here are the ten significant observations on
blog readership:
1. I’m
glad the Philippines (32%), my home country, topped the list of reader
countries. If not, it would have been a
shame since most of the environmental topics are local and close to home. It would be unthinkable if Filipinos were
less interested in their own environmental, socio-political, cultural and
economic conditions.
2. The
United States (26%) came in second (perhaps) because there are a sizeable
number of Filipinos living in the US.
But then, we will also have to factor-in the disparity in populations…
100 million Filipinos vis-à-vis “318 million Americans”. (http://www.census.gov/popclock/) Although Americans are considered to be
“techie” as they own more computers on a per-household basis.
3. The
region that has relatively more blog readers is the Middle East… countries like
Saudi Arabia (10%), Iraq (6%), and Qatar and United Arab Emirates (both with
less than 1%).
4. The
blog readers from Saudi Arabia (10%) and Iraq (6%) are a very interesting
lot. There is a big disparity in
ecological characteristics (desert for Saudi Arabia and Iraq and tropical rain
forest for the Philippines) but there is, to a certain degree, a common
interest for environmental matters.
5. Japan
(less than 1%), considered to be the technology hub of Asia has curiously few
blog readers. Language barrier is
perhaps the reason for this.
6. European
countries (such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Poland,
Slovakia and Ukraine) known as the “Old World” surprisingly have less than 1%
blog readers. Perhaps they are simply
not interested or less interested in the environmental woes of an obscure
country like the Philippines.
7. Blog
readers from the Middle East (like Saudi Arabia [10%], Iraq [6%] and United
Arab Emirates [less than 1%]) are less likely to be interested in tropical rain
forest ecosystems like the Philippines… much more on Philippine
socio-political-economic affairs.
8. Blog
readers from the United Kingdom and other UK-influenced countries (such as:
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, etc., al registering
less the 1%) are surprisingly few. Are
they way ahead of everyone in environmental matters? They probably have little present-day
concerns for the environment since they already addressed and looked into them
decades ago.
9. India
(less than 1%), a country known for its high literacy rate also has few blog
readers. Curiously, India has more
bloggers than the Philippines.
10. African
nations, perceived to be less educated, have relatively few blog readers. Only Kenya and South Africa (both less than
1%) was picked up by the radar.
A prime consideration in this quick analysis is that
environmental matters and concerns are not that popular. Perhaps blogs on common-interest subject
matters like tourist destinations, restaurants and food, fashion, motor cars,
gadgets, etc. have a wider readership.
Neither do I claim having reached all the countries in the world. But as far as my blogsite is concerned and
backed-up by data, this is my simple anatomy of a blog readership.
Just my little thoughts…
(Please visit, like and share Pro EARTH Crusaders and
Landscape Ecology UPOU on Facebook or follow me at http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/ )
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