Apr 23 2007
How Many Australian Blogs are There?
I have previously written about the state of blogsearch in Australia and how difficult it can be to find Australian content. I’ve mentioned gnoos, the Australian Index and AustralianBlogs (more a blog directory than blog search) as being our only really viable localised search options. I’ve also lamented it would be great if Google blogsearch was available for our au domain.
Over the weekend I fell over a site called www.blogs.com.au. This site was released on April 2 this year. At present it is a customised Google search, which searches the 1,200+ blogs that are included.
The website is the initiative of Anthony Dever, a 27 year old entrepreneur from Brisbane with training in PR, journalism and marketing, who until recently operated a small web hosting company which he sold to pursue some online projects he’s been contemplating.
You may know of Anthony, a self confessed “media junkie” and avid consumer of Aussie blogs and a great supporter of the Australian blogsphere. In his spare time for the last 5 years Anthony has also run a website called fugly.com.au, which parodies the Logie awards.
Over the years of surfing Aussie blogs, Anthony has been quietly collecting URLs and storing them in a file. He has incorporated all these blogs in this customised Google search, and is welcoming submissions to help build up the search data base. Australian blogs may be added to the search via an email link. I would suggest just a quick email with your URL and maybe a one line description so Anthony doesn’t get inundated with life stories! He tells me that over the next day or so he will be getting a submission form on the site to save the email.
As it stands, it’s a great search on a platform that all of us are familiar with. But Anthony has larger plans for the site. I shan’t give too much away, but to hint at a few functions – think tags, advanced searching by topic and location, and an RSS powered update tracker for all the latest news.
While you’re there be sure to check out Anthony’s blog “The Local” which launched yesterday and is spotlighting a “blog of the day” and other news on the Aussie blogosphere (such as the Aussie launch of defamer.com.au and gizmodo.com.au). It’s bound to be a great read.
Anthony wonders, as do I, just how many Aussie blogs are out there? If you’re curious too, please help spread the word about this local blog search, submit your blog and help other Aussies find you.
14 Responses to “How Many Australian Blogs are There?”
Tragically I too have been collecting aussie blog names… melbourneblogs, sydneyblogs etc. etc. One of these days!
James
Why tragic? Perhaps you could share
The figure being used last year (and I think I was using it as well) is 700,000, although prior to that figures were 300-400,000. Statistically those figures would mean Australia was under-represented in the blogosphere as opposed to many other countries, including France and the UK, where penetration on blogs was something like 7-10% of the population (raw, this doesn’t allow for multiple blogs per person) at one stage. If you check the archives at The Blog Herald (look for “blog count”) I might have posted some other figures. To be honest I don’t think we’ll ever have a real number, because how do you count Australian blogs when the domain gestapo auDA restricts .com.au registrations forcing ordinary bloggers offshore for .com and other domain names. That, and the countless millions of other Australians using Blogger, Windows Live Spaces and MySpace for blogging as well.
PS: Add subscribe to comments plugin, this is a thread I’d like to follow
Wow, that’s a lot of blogs.
I don’t know about “millions” using hosted domains! I still predominantly get a blank look when I mention the word “blog” (but maybe that’s just the people I mix with).
But certainly I imagine there would be a majority of blogs which are NOT on the au domain, or even hosted here. But I daresay you’re correct – that we’ll never know for sure.
PS – I’ll add the comments plugin when I eventually get time to transfer this blog to my own domain (the plugin is not an option at the moment, well not that I can find)!
[…] Meg asks a question right out of my own past: how many Australian Blogs are there?. […]
Thanks for sharing that Meg. There really isn’t enough hours in the days to read all the Australian blogs which I am only just discovering.
The majority of young bloggers I meet use an overseas hosted domain, often with no specific reference to what country they are in. It would be nice to see a similar system to Technorati’s claiming system, for Aussie blogs only.
Hi Michelle – I can certainly relate to that! There’s not enough hours in the day to find them or sort them either. Anthony (and others) are doing a great service.
Scientaestubique, they are difficult to identify, and I agree that a home grown claim system would be nice (beyond my resources however)!
if you visit Blogshares their list has 2318 but of course it isn’t complete …
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