An interesting research conducted by comScore Media Metrix, and sponsored in part by SixApart and Gawker Media is giving us an overall image of the Behaviors of the Blogosphere, scale, composition and activities of weblogs audiences.

The research is conducted on a panel of more than 2 million Internet users (out of which 75% are US based).  An analysis of the traffic of thousands of blogs identified some 350 top blog sites and blog networks; that list was supplemented with other popular blogs in smaller segments, such as business blogs.  The analysis also included more than two dozen large weblog hosting services, including Blogspot, Xanga, TypePad and others, which collectively represent millions of blog sites.

Key findings of the report:

• 400 blog domains tracked by comScore were visited by 50 million U.S. Internet users in Q1 2005.  This represents an increase of 45 percent compared to Q1 2004.
• Traffic to the top blog hosting services has grown considerably in the past year. Six of the top ten hosts have grown by more than 100 percent compared to last year.  Top gainers included Blogs.com (+241 percent), TypePad (+240 percent) and Blogdrive (+223 percent).
• Politcs/News weblogs are preffered by 43 percent of blog readers followed by Hipster Blogs (17%) and Tech blogs (15%), with business blogs ending the list with only 3 percent.
• Blog visitors are 30 percent more likely than the average Internet user to live in households where the household head is 18 to 34 years old and are 11 percent more likely to access the Internet using a broadband connection.

Technorati tag: Blog Readers, Blog Audience, Blogsphere