An article on Mashable today discussed a study by Pew Internet that broke down the online activities by age groups, starting with as young as 18 and working up to 74+.
Many of the results were not surprising. Email was an almost uniform activity across every age group, as were searching and getting news online. Also, younger individuals were more likely to play games online, IM and use social networks while their slightly older cohorts were more likely to visit government sites and check financial information.
All in all, the younger the respondent, the more activities they likely did online, though it seemed almost no one was using virtual worlds.
However, one thing that did catch some off guard was the decline in blogging. Not only was blogging an unpopular activity across all age groups, less than 10% said they blogged and less than half said they read blogs (with younger respondents having the highest percentage), there was a marked decline from the previous year's survey.
Many will undoubtedly look at this and see dark things in the future for blogging. However, the truth is likely much different and there are very simple reasons for the numbers and why they aren't very important.
Once again, the power and exposure of having a blog pays off big time! Last week I was in New York City doing an interview with ABC Studios on how to make money blogging and how to help others get started. The interview went live on ABC NEWS Now and 
We hear it all the time, do something you are passionate about and the money will follow. While this may be true in some situations, it doesn’t apply to everything. However, if you are just starting a blog and have no idea where it could go, or how long you will stay interested, you might as well write something you are passionate about. This will not only provide quality content that you really know about, but you will want to stay active with your blog and it won’t die out for lack of interest. Depending on how many other people share your interest, and the success of your blog, the potential in this area can swing either way.
This one can easily fall into the “blogging for passion” category. It isn’t enough to simply watch our favorite players and teams on TV, but we also want to have our own thoughts and opinions and meet with other fans of our teams. Having a sports blog about your favorite team or player, is a great way to start a blog that makes you want to keep writing more and more content. If your sports blog gets enough attention, you may even be able to score some free game tickets, press passes or interview a few sports players. Revenue wise, sports blogs are tough because there are so many, but many sites offer affiliate programs where you can earn commissions on any referred sales for sports tickets, memorabilia, apparel and sporting goods.
A different, but very effective methods for making money with blogs, is through niche marketing, or mini sites. The concept of niche blogging is to create a blog on a small specific topic, then being one of the best blogs in that niche (mainly to rank high in search results). If you wanted to make a niche blog about “red widgets”, you would want to get an exact match domain name such as “redwidgets.com”, write specifically about red widgets, link to Amazon red widgets products you could buy, adding Google Adsense to your site and so on… Having a tight niche blog is a great way to teach yourself how to blog, while giving you the best chance for making some money in the process.
I know I mention it a lot, but I’m a huge advocate for having a great custom blog / web site design. With that said, I am always finding new designers to work on web design, but it is always tough to find a quality designer that can provide both high quality design and PSD to HTML cutting as well. If it isn’t the quality you are having an issue with, it might just be the extra cost. You do have an alternative though, there are many sites that specialize in just PSD to HTML services, where they will cut up your design and have it ready for you within a day, or even hours.
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