Thanks for voting yesterday in my readership survey - nearly 600 of you were kind enough to take part! Now I know how my readership has changed over the last fouryears, and also how very similar it is too. According to the 2008 survey results, the typical diamond geezer reader is a straight-but-coupled 30-something male blog-reader from the London area (just like the results suggested two years ago). If anyone out there reckons they could be Mr Average, please stake your claim in the comments box. And here are those results in a little more detail.
Male or female?
male (407)
72%
female (162)
28%
Hmmm, that's more than two male readers to every female, a proportion which has remained exactly the same over the last two years. Maybe cyberworld is still full of blokes, or maybe I'm still not posting enough kittens.
Age
<20 (21)
4%
20s (138)
24%
30s (188)
33%
40s (109)
19%
50s (83)
14%
60+ (38)
7%
Just over half of my readers are aged between 20 and 40, with rather more 30- than 20-somethings. Since 2004 the profile of my readership has aged slightly, with a definite increase in 50-somethings stopping by. But the yoof market still appear to be off elsewhere, babbling on Bebo or faffing around on Facebook (or just txting with da homies kno wotya mean innit like).
Where do you live? (pick one)
London (281)
49%
England (149)
26%
UK (26)
4%
Europe (31)
5%
World (91)
16%
I reckon that about half of the posts on this blog are about London, which may explain why about half of my readers are Londoners. That's a stonkingly high proportion, and one that's been rising steadily over the years (up from one-third in 2004). Don't worry, there's still a lot of non-London stuff on my blog too, which is probably why my nationwide and worldwide readers still stick around. But I bet that if I still lived in Ipswich, most of you wouldn't bother coming back.
A bit more about you
straight, single (185)
32%
straight, coupled (317)
56%
gay, single (37)
6%
gay, coupled (31)
5%
These are nigh exactly the same proportions as two years ago. Do these oh-so consistent results allow us to extrapolate, Kinsey-style, that just under 90% of the world's population is straight? And should I take heart from the fact that nearly 40% of you are still single?
Do you have your own blog?
yes (225)
39%
no (347)
61%
Hmmm, this vote's changed considerably over the years. Back in 2004 more than half of you were bloggers, and now that figure is less than 40%. Is this because fewer people are blogging, or is it because those people who used to blog have given up? Or is it merely because blogging is no longer a secret niche activity overlooked by the mainstream? Whatever, there are still 225 bloggers reading this blog - so my deepest apologies if I don't have time to read all of yours.
How often do you read diamond geezer?
daily (358)
62%
often (166)
29%
occasionally (46)
8%
first visit (8)
1%
I blame RSS. Nearly two-thirds of you now claim to come back every day, whereas it used to be only a half. That's comforting, because I do try very hard to post something every day for you to read. Meanwhile the proportion of readers visiting only occasionally has plummeted - it's all or nothing these days. And a special hello to the eight of you who were making your very first visit yesterday (assuming you ever come back again, that is).
When was your first visit to diamond geezer?
2002/03 (64)
11%
2004/05 (145)
25%
2006 (136)
24%
2007 (160)
28%
2008 (72)
12%
And finally, a tribute to the longevity of blog readers. About one in ten of you claim to have been reading since the early days, with more and more of you joining in as the years have passed. But I'm surprised to see that less than half of you were around the last time I ran this survey. There's a lot of monthly archives for you lot to catch up on, you know. Thanks to you all for sticking around, however long it's been. And I wonder how different things will look by the first week of 2010...
