About a hundred people, mainly students were contacted for this survey, keeping in mind the fact that the phenomenon of ‘blogging’ would me more a part of their daily activities on the Web, than any other strata of society. For the most part the selection of respondents was unbiased and random.

The results revealed that about 37 per cent of the students had a broadband connection, while 47 per cent did not. 13 per cent shopped online, as opposed to the larger percentage of 71 who did not. When asked how many sites were visited daily, the responses ranged from two as the minimum to 40 as the maximum. However, the overall averaged out to about four to five sites as the maximum number visited daily.

Turning to the blogging experience in particular, 20 per cent of the people have weblogs of their own, while 64 per cent replied in the negative. Of those who did blog, 70 per cent did not blog on a daily basis. The remaining 12 per cent who did blog daily did so for five minutes at the least and 60 minutes at the most. When it came to reading other blogs, 43 per cent replied in the affirmative while 39 per cent claimed they did not.

The next question was qualitative and asked the best thing people liked about blogging. Responses varied from: freedom of speech, not having to worry about what others might think, uncensored opinions, knowing other people’s profiles and interests, a good pastime, sharing thoughts, its creativeness, the fact that there is no face-to-face interaction with anyone, knowledge of new things, some even assuming that blogs reveal the true self of writers, the issues discussed and the places reviewed, the interaction of people on a global scale – as the reasons why people enjoyed the idea of blogs. Still others liked blogs as they saw them as ideal places for gossip, access to first-hand postings with a diverse range of material to read, helping them stay updated on what’s going on where and even for being a ‘cool’ way to socialise.