Tuesday, May 26, 2009

2009 Blog Reader Survey

Every year I conduct a survey of the readers of my blog. Its aim is severalfold. I genuinely want to know what you like or dislike about the blog - what you think I am getting right and what I am not. In addition, it's an opportunity to find out more about you, your politics and background. It's partly because I am nosy and partly because I can then make a more accurate pitch to potential advertisers. Advertisers are taking blogs increasingly seriously, but they need accurate information about a blog's readers if they are going to pay for space. There are several sections...

1. Age/residence/job
2. Your blogging habits
3. Your views on this blog
4. Which other blogs you read
5. Voting habits
6. Media habits
7. Demographics

Anyway, there are 30 questions and it should take you about ten minutes to complete. Last year, I think more than 2,000 of you took part. Hopefully we can beat that this time.

Click HERE to take the survey.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

There aren't 30 questions there are hundreds. Gave up at no 11. Question fatigue.

The Grim Reaper said...

I've certainly noticed some strange adverts on this blog over the last few months. When you went to Russia, you couldn't move for all the adverts asking if we wanted to date Russian women.

Over at Guido's blog today, I noticed that Ministry of Sound (of all people) were using it to advertise a forthcoming compilation of theirs. Certainly debunks the myth that blogs like this have an audience consisting entirely of boring old farts, doesn't it?

The Grim Reaper said...

Oh, and my car (a Ford Fiesta from 1998) works perfectly well, Iain. I resented having to click on the "old banger" option, you cheeky bugger.

wolfie said...

@ Grim Reaper

Would have thought that in your line of work and with a '98 Ford you would be championing scrappage!

Indigo said...

I was able to complete the survey OK. (I read Iraqi blogs.) I think some of the questions need a "prefer not to say" option, though, like wot YouGov does.

Paul Halsall said...

@ Grim Reaper

Try blogging about Islam - as I did on a very long post on Homosexuality and Tolerance in History. I got hundreds of "meet Muslim singles" for days.

rented said...

Also gave up on it after a few pages.

Why so many questions about "how often" I read the blog? I read the posts on the blog as often as they appear in my RSS feed. That's in your control, not mine.

Anonymous said...

Political Role
9.1
There is no option for not being an elected respresentative.

The Grim Reaper said...

wolfie said "Would have thought that in your line of work and with a '98 Ford you would be championing scrappage!"

Funnily enough, my work doesn't have anything at all to do with death, despite what the name suggests. I actually work in the gambling industry.

Paul Halsall said "Try blogging about Islam - as I did on a very long post on Homosexuality and Tolerance in History. I got hundreds of "meet Muslim singles" for days."

I'm just glad Iain didn't go to Thailand for a few days. The adverts that he would have got after that...

Anonymous said...

No Yorkshire?

Dick the Prick said...

Yorkshire = North then? Righty ho - ya bloody Southern softie - Yorkshire's the biggest county by bloody miles.

Unknown said...

In your survey you ask people about other blogs that they read. Why did you not include Craig Murray's blog in the options list? Like him or not, his blog is one of the most important on the go due to his inside knowledge of international diplomacy. Why this reluctance to acknowledge his existence?

Shinsei said...

The "how often do you read this blog/newspaper" questions aren't easily answered correctly.

Of course, at the moment, with the expenses scandal and upcoming elections I expect most readers of your blog are looking at far more other blogs than they would normally.

Jon Lishman said...

Wish I'd done this survey after I'd read that ghastly article on this blog about why a Conservative student activist should be politically castrated and boiled in oil for writing a poorly expressed, naive article in a small university paper that dared to be critical (apparently) of the current party overlords' conflicted European stance.

Really nasty. And a bit of an eye-opener, too, frankly.

Simon Gardner said...

Dorries blog closed by iSP over defamation of Daily Telegraph claim.

JuliaM said...

I had no problems completing the survey, though in the car questions, I was sorry there wasn't a box to tick for 'Gaia destroying SUV death machine'... ;)

Harri the undistracted driver said...

I had no problems completing all the questions , it got tad tricky at times due to the fact that i was driving at the time , but apart from that a piece if p***.

When is the next one due out !