In France Blogs Are Pas de Blagues

Michael Hedges June 11, 2006

Blogs are seen by their fans as the quintessential example of new media, universal access to an interactive, searchable medium. To bloggers, mainstream media is both target and nemesis. But blogs – web logs – are going mainstream.

Médiamétrie – France’s mainstream measurement service – released a report on blogs and blogging in France. In results for the first quarter 2006, 3.2 million had created blogs and more than 4 million have posted comments to a blog. The study shows that 900,000 have started their own web-blog since the 3rd quarter 2005. Blogging – creating or contributing – increased by about 10% in the last six months to 7, 308,000.

Blogs – with some notable, largely American exceptions – are hardly fonts of commerce. Most continue to be the musings and rantings of individuals about themselves or their favorite cause destined for friends and family. A few attract wider attention. An even smaller minority have become rather mainstream, much in the mold of alternative press or radio.

But tens of millions have signed up making their enablers – the telecoms providing internet access – bits of small change. The financial winners are the services providing blog hosting and, of course, the advertising aggregators. Médiamétrie’s recent survey shows how quickly the blog has become big business. More than a quarter of French blogs carry advertising.

One in five French bloggers use SkyBlog, the blog platform of national radio network Skyrock. Affinity with SkyRock’s young, male and rather edgy audience certainly adds to SkyBlog’s success. Indeed, SkyRock’s recent financial report proclaims SkyBlog a success where it counts. SkyBlog is an ad aggregator as well as blog platform.

More than seven million people in France have visited blogs, a quarter of all internet users. Mediametrie latest e-media report suggests the French are blogging everything, though specific topics were not surveyed. Being French and young the bloggers – contributors and visitors – are into sex, sex, sex, sports, sports, sex and more sex. But, wait! Is not this the same everywhere?

Chinese blogs, a tiny percentage of internet users but still over 15 million strong, are “in the style of high school girls' notepads,” writes China Daily. The most popular Chinese blogger is popular actress Xu Jinglei.

Digital magazines are more popular in China with 20 million readers. What’s hot? TV star Yang Lan’s Lan – equilivant, says China Daily, to Oprah Winfrey’s O. Lan, launched last December, targets adult women and was downloaded by 2.1 million in its first four months.

Blogging may have peaked in the US; newly created blogs have fallen sharply in the last year. Perhaps that American trend came concurrently with the rising advice of public relations advisors to companies and organizations to reach out to the blogosphere – the set of active blog enthusiasts who tend to shun – but access – the MSM. Social science has even created a name for hard-core bloggers: hypersocial individuals – people who interact on a variety of levels, and a variety of identities, with people they’ve never actually met. It’s just perfect for France.