Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

| This News Blog is dedicated to bringing news, information and innovations targeting the Search Engine Optimisation industry.

Young loose interest in blogging

Younger internet users are already losing interest in blogging and switching to shorter and more mobile forms of communication according to a recent study in the US.

While the short attention span of teenagers comes as no surprise, the findings are of significant interest to search engine professionals

According to a survey for the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the number of 12 to 17-year-olds in the US who blog has halved to 14% since 2006.

It also suggests they prefer making short postings on social networking sites, and going online using their mobile phones. As the tools and technology embedded in social networking sites changed, and use of the sites continued to grow, young people also appeared to be exchanging macro-blogging for micro-blogging with status updates.

However, the research did find a modest rise in blogging by those aged 30 and older. The increase from 7% in 2007 to 11% in 2009 is believed to be responsible for the prevalence of blogging, within the overall adult internet population remaining steady at roughly 10%.

This has implication for the SEO industry, especially with the introduction of Google's new Caffeine architecture that has been designed to embrace social networking.

It means that companies will have to think harder about which types of social media they need to utilise in order to target specific age groups.

In fact, Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher for Pew and the lead author of the study, is reported as saying that the ability to do status updates had sucked the life out of long-form blogging.

However teens are not using Twitter in large numbers and while they are the biggest users of almost all other online applications, Twitter was an exception, the study found.

But, Lenhart doubts that blogging will disappear. She believes those who blog for personal reasons will instead focus on important events such as a wedding, a trip or the birth of baby.

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