Google’s famous blog-service Blogger lets you reveal all about yourself on your profile page. You get to list your interests, favorite books, music and movies. And the fun of all this is that you can click on any of your interests to see who else has the same one. Here’s an exiting survey of how seriously common I am.
An army of 25,000 bloggers are, like me, interested in “science” but only 3,500 in “Bible.” I thought I’d be marvelously eccentric, but 5,000 likeminded bloggers favor Ghost World, a whopping 7,100 bloggers co-favor the movie Pi (one guy also likes “kicking puppies”) and an avalanche of 10,000 bloggers like Steel Magnolias (almost all females, some very pretty).
On the other hand, a measly 552 marked A Love Song for Bobby Long (I really don’t get that. What a film!). Only 59 remember Bar Fly, but 7,900 love Brazil! The amazing documentary Why We Fight is favored by a pleasing 301 bloggers, one is a fast-posting self-proclaimed drunkolexic called The Hangover Helper.
A disappointing 55,600 bloggers list the Bible among their favorite books.
There are 151 people in the world who are interested in “peace and quiet,” only three who like “rarity” (two guys, one lady, who is also the only one in the world who’s interested in “ample bosoms”). And while I’m at it: I’m one of eight people who have “Position Of The Day” in their fav-book list. And six of them are women! What’s up with that?
According to Technorati, the most popular not-mainstream-media blog belongs to a Chinese actress named Xu Jinglei. Somebody ought to buy her a bigger server because after two days I’ve given up trying to get in. The most popular blog at large is that of the Huffington Post. And isn’t that cute. I remember when they started. They were actively looking for supporting bloggers, as I recall. Do’h!
World-wide there are about as many blogs as there are people living in the US. About two-thirds of these blogs are considered inactive, but one may wonder how long you’d have to slack to get that predicate.
Math readers don’t seem to blog much. Only seven favor Mathematical Mysteries, a mere three like Fermat’s Last Theorem, but a comforting 39 like The Man Who Knew Infinity.
There are only 51 bloggers that list La Proulx’s Close Range. After Brokeback Mountain you’d figure more people would like it. There are only 59 bloggers that like Gulag! Outrage! And this makes me want to go quietly back to bed: there are only 3 fellow lovers of The Amazing Adventures Of Cavelier And Clay. Oh, wait, that Kavalier with a K. Ah, there are 821 blogger who know how to spell Kavalier. But I guess most readers of Pulitzer Prize winning literature don’t blog.
I’m the only one who favors Brown, Driver and Briggs, who is a Maritime Engineer, who’s interested in “struggling but serious writers,” “women named Anna” and “grace in all simplicity” (that’s a Shakespeare quote). I am also the only one who lists “Lieve Jongens” under favored books. That’s peculiar because it’s a famous book and the author died just two years ago (and there are 79,300 bloggers listed in the Netherlands). Only one other person lists the very famous Dutch novel “Ik had een wapenbroeder.”
I would also be very interested in (the results of) a research project that looks at which kinds of literature and movies are favored by people who blog and what they write about. Wouldn’t that change the way we advertise our books? But they’re probably already doing that. I haven’t come up with an original idea since the urinal-incident of 1973.
And I would also like Google to create a feature that lists how much your profile and someone else’s are alike (check out Chainsaw Killer’s blog; he’s 98% like you!). That could easily spawn a Google-dating service!
http://www.arieuittenbogaard.blogspot.com
June 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Great Article.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I try to keep my private life, private. I find it peculiar though that people reveal all their intimate secrets in such a private place.
We used to do that and call it a “diary” and kept it hidden under lock and key. Not anymore. The Internet can make all your secrets public knowledge if you allow it to do just that.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Hi Juliane,
I think a mild degree of divulgence is in order when one blogs. I mean, what other point is there?
June 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am
arie, you had me worried for a bit. heh heh heh.
great article.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Blogging is great fun x
June 19th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I can see that you’ve put a lot of time into this article. Very interesting facts!
June 20th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Great article, amazing research.
Now i know a lot more about you (Arie) than i needed/ intended to (In response to Juliane’s comment.)
July 10th, 2008 at 9:24 am
My profiles generally are written “on the spot” and reflect very little prolonged or intentional thought. Of course there are many movies that I would consider “favorites” but I usually just type in a couple that we have in the house. Books? I read about 50 a year and even have a list that I keep, but I’ve never felt compelled to add them to a Profile. Music? I can’t think of much that I don’t like, but how do you put that into a profile? Can’t list hundreds of artists. All in all, such blogger profiles offer only a shadow view of a person, I think, but I will allow for the possibility that SOME of the folks really do try to offer the complete picture of themselves. That seems pretty limiting–to say that a Bloger Profile represents the entire persona. I did enjoy reading the numbers. Good article.