Was just looking through Technorati founder Dave Sifry’s most recent state of the blogosphere post and one stat that jumped out of me was that “50% of new bloggers are still posting 3 months later.” Sifry adds in the comments section that this doesn’t include splogs (spam blogs) and spings (spam pings).

This means a new blogger instantly increases his changes of being read by simply staying in the game after three months. I wondered earlier how many had given up too soon and this provides background that at least 50% of those Technorati are tracking do.

If we extend this out to a new business timespan that many consider to be critical — five years — then what do the numbers look like? 99% of blogs started today won’t be active in five years? 99.5%? More? Less?

I liken this blogging stuff to a marathon, not a sprint. I’m in this for the long term, whatever that is, and if the word “blog” falls out of favor and becomes something else, the name might be changed, but I’ve got my eye centered on five years (still 2 years, five months away).

Fellow bloggers, do you?

Keep the blood pumping
Beyond writing quality content one of the easiest ways to get noticed is to survive — to stay alive — and the only way to prove that in the blogosphere is to keep posting. I hope these stats encourage newer bloggers that despite being another statistic in the 27.2+ million blogs being tracked there is actually some hope for those who plan for longevity.

Others are writing
Paying homage to Amy Bellinger on dynamic reading lists, Anne Zelenka writes: “I think a churning-burning reading list may be more useful than a static one.” This dynamic reading thing sounds in line with what Dave Winer has been working on with his OPML reading lists.
Qumana’s Tris Hussey expects: “…to see see more blogs focused on niche areas as e-mail becomes less viable for newsletters.” Could be wishful thinking, Tris, because lots of regular people out there do not see the convenience of RSS, but rather the complications. When Vista ships and IE has RSS built-in — and if they do it right, which is a whole other discussion in itself, this could help fuel adoption and convenience.
John Murrell delivers a solid Tribbles/blogs analogy and catchy headline: Please spay your blog.
The power of change. Josh Hallett describes how fast things move by how he had to keep changing his handouts and slides for a speech with the new things being released.
Carl Howe’s advice is “Now is the time to start building your personal network of peers to guide you through today’s new media world.”

Closing thoughts
I noticed a lot of other bloggers are focusing on the sheer blog stats and numbers and how daunting all this information can be to sift through and I wonder if that’s what scares away new bloggers? I’m reminded of Scoble at Search Champs recently pointing out that Michael Arrington of TechCrunch hasn’t even been at this a year yet. The answer is there are still voices we are interested in hearing. Voices that can rise among the others and demand to be heard through a combination of great content and good writing. I don’t even think being a great writer is required to rise above the rest, but I do know that good content is required.

Why you think so many bloggers give up so soon? 90 days? One can sneeze and that passes by. Heck, my oil needs checking faster than that it seems! For those who blogging, what keeps you going? Maybe we should put together some ideas for when the going gets tough, or maybe not. Maybe we should just say good riddance to those who quit too soon.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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