Reaction: Pew research on bloggers

A few highlights from the newly published Pew Research on bloggers entitled:

Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers

According to Alexander Halavais, an assistant professor of interactive communications at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut:

"The average blogger is a 14 year old girl writing about her cat."

The report also says there are about 12 MILLION people writing blogs. That is a lot of 14 year old girls with cats, if you ask me.

Tidbit and Tiggie approve of this trend.

They think that I am a 14 year old girl.
(What do they know...)

The study commented that the under 30 blogger writes as a means of self expression, and the over 50 to 64 year olds writes to convey practical knowledge or skills.

Hmmm...does millinery come under the heading of conveying "practical knowledge or skills"?

Duh. Of course! Everyone should know how to whip up a really cool hat using a bowl from Ikea or Marshalls.

Another interesting (to me at least...) quote:

"Of all the bloggers out there, there are only about 10,000 that have an audience beyond their friends and family," said B. L. Ochman, a business blogger who tracks online trends.

Math has always been my weak point, but....

If there are 12 million bloggers, and only 10,000 are read by non-friend and family, then the fact that I am apparently read by a few people who are not family (based on comments that are posted to my blog), would put in in the top what percent?

I really should run next door and ask my neighbor who is working on her Phd in Discrete Mathmatics to crunch those numbers for me.

But roughly I would say ***I am floored****

Now, back to the report.

Who are bloggers?

14% of bloggers are in my age bracket (50-65)
Sadly, only 2% of bloggers are over 65.
54% are under 30.

Like under 30 year old have so much important insight, and why are the over 65 (who are RETIRED for heaven sake, they should have time for this) not putting their acquired wisdom out for electronic eternity?

Interesting also that 60% are white. The other races make up the rest. The voice of the minority is being heard. I wonder what percentage of bloggers are white over 65 year olds?

95% of bloggers get their news from the internet. Read: They really care about what is happening, and seek out information several times a day. They may read a news event from several sources, staying well ahead of the curve of the local newspaper edition.

47% of blogger also read what other bloggers are saying about the news.
A public forum, at last!
Pictures rise up in my mind of colonial gents crowding the town square to hear the latest "Hear ye, hear ye!" pronounced, and then discussing the news with each other, eventually birthing a nation.

How fabulous to read reactions not filtered by news media, and television and radio personalities.

77% of all bloggers have shared something that they have created, such as artwork, song, poem, story or video.
One blogger in Texas shares her hat making.
(I'm making that last part up, it wasn't really in the report. This time.)

35% of bloggers take the time to verify facts before publishing.

13% post daily.

Bloggers are evenly split between men and women. So it isn't just a guy thing or a girl thing.

The most popular blog tool for those with a college degree is Blogspot (my personal choice)

27% of American's have college degrees
37% of bloggers have college degrees.

13% of Americans are knowledge based professional workers
38% of bloggers are knowledge based professional workers.

The Pew study was partly titled "New Storytellers". I had the rare opportunity to study story telling in graduate school. Most people think story telling is just a "Once upon a time..." narrative.

They are wrong.

Story telling is the communication of an event, a vision, or a signifier from one person to at least one other person. I personally believe it is story telling that keeps society and families whole. Once a society or family stops telling stories about themselves, then it is as if that society or family has no past.

The Hawaiian people use the phrase "talk story" to signify that they want to get together and talk.
Like "We need to talk story, wanna come over tonight?"

I think blogging is just another way to "talk story". And I am truly grateful that blogging is such an easy forum from which to share.

Millinery: In the Pink

Pink parasisol straw hood (did you know it takes a weaver five days to make one hood-the blank straw hat shape?)
Ribbon flowers created by me.
Finally decided to do a bias drape after fighting a wide satin pink ribbon that did nothing for the hat.
How many times did I block it?
Four.
One low crown, one high crown, (see prior post!) one inverted crown with flat brim,
and finally....

Tally ho!

A riding hat shape galloped into my creative mind's eye, as I walked between the kitchen and the hat room.

This hat and the purple "It's the Berries" hat are for sale!
I plan to propose doing a trunk show at a local shop, but that is still in the dream stage. Get 'em before the merchant jacks up the price!


 

Millinery: The Houston Hat Net

A few years back I bought my first ****seriously**** priced hat. My husband said this would be a one time event, a statement that brought out the burning desire for more hats!
I discovered a Hat Chat electronic posting board. On the board was an announcement that hat lovers in New York would be welcome to meet for lunch at such and such restaurant on such and such date and time.

I was crushed. It sounded like sooooo much fun. But soooo far away.

So I posted asking if there were any hat wearers in Houston (the 4th largest city in America, by the way....) which is just an hour from my town of Kingwood.

Lo and behold, Kate Pernia replied that indeed there were hat lovers in Houston, and that they had formed a group called The Houston Hat Net. Kate actually was the founder. She claims that she went to a society wedding and was the only person wearing a hat. What a let down!
She rounded up a few hat wearing friends and they later went out, hatted, for lunch.

The rest is history.

The Houston Hat Net has a website:

http://www.orgsites.com/tx/houstonhatnet/

and currently the site is flattering me by having my "It's the Berries" and "Traveling Hat" on the home page. Silly me, it just makes me feel ooie-gooie happy to see my hats on that website.
Thanks Marie! (she's the webmistress over there)

If you have a chance to visit Houston during one of the HHN events, put on your hat and come along.

A fine group of ladies in the finest of hats makes for a mighty fine time!

>HTML< and =....

Bless me somebody, I've added a LINKS side bar! Now you can bounce over to my favorite blogs (after reading mine first of course...) with just a click.

I'm amazed that I was successful using html enough to get them there, even if the title isn't the right font (help me, somebody, please!) and the links squish ARCHIVES.

ARCHIVES for June 1 is under MAY 2006. Go figure.

If you know how to fix this, let me know. I even used a BOOK to try to figure it out!
Otherwise, just squint, and turn up the radio, so maybe it won't be so noticeable.

Hint: Turning up the car radio works when the car is making a funny noise and you don't have the time and/or money to fix it after you learn that the noise is not car life threatening.
(This hint from daughter Laura, the Road Warrior Princess RN.)

Introducing my Grandbaby Sebastian

("Good Lord!", I hear you say. What is THAT?)

THAT.... is Sebastian.

Yup, I do have a grandbaby. Sebastian lives with his daddy, our son Jeff, in Salt Lake City.

My first grandbaby was a bearded dragon lizard. And pathetically, I was over the moon when the darn thing laid an egg.

The egg didn't hatch.

Sigh.

But then Jeff got me a grandkitty. Sebastian. An adorable kitten, he is now full grown and has lived in a variety of settings including a fraternity house, beach house, and apartments. He is a remarkably calm cat considering some of his former housing situations.








Lots of my friends have grandchildren, and they show me charming pictures of their adorable "grands" fresh from their baths, looking angelic and oh so huggable.

I am so jealous.

So here's my "grand" fresh from his bath.

Once he dried, he looked a lot better.

I think I have the cutest grandcat in the whole wide world.

(FYI: Sebastian, AKA "Meowsie" really does have to be washed in water regularly, either by a pet groomer or Jeff, as the long fur in his..., er, um, private quarters, gets unhygenic otherwise. Ewww.)