Blog Posts

Same Google-Query above lists 386 entries here before duplicate entries.

Perhaps somebody find a answer at the weblog faq (http://www.stefanbucher.net/weblogfaq/#25). Had at the momentan no time, perhaps afterwards I write a longer answer.

A journalist just asked me how many Swiss blogs there are, and I told her 'nobody knows'. That's about as accurate as it gets right now :-).

Anyway. I think there are two methods to count blogs:
a) self-declaration, IOW blogs that registered themselves either at blog.ch, swissblogs.com, or the international registries that have a Switzerland section.

b) deduction, IOW educated guesswork. That can be done by using searchengine results, or writing your own intelligent spider that can figure out when a blog is "Swiss".

Solution b) has a huge potential for completely bogus figures; it all depends on the algorithm that determines "Swissness". I wouldn't have a clue how to begin here.

Solution a) has almost no bogus data, but there's a huge gray are: Not all Swiss blogs in existance will register themselves at blog.ch or swissblogs.com. And we can't count on them registering as "Swiss" in the international directories, either. And even if they're registered in the international directory, you'd have to check each blog for activity. But if there were a reliable way to determine the size of the gray area, we could come up with something more solid than idle speculation.

Now more. I think the site from Sven Przepiorka, a german site liked from the site weblog faq (http://www.tzwaen.com/publikationen/weblogs-definitionen/). Describe a lot of diferent aspects. Meg Hourihan's comment about blogs (at the bottom in english) is, from my point, real correct. But also Peter Praschl is right when he say the a blog pulish content as a normal website ("[...]als ganz normale Webseite").

So a blog is a normal website and from this point its real hard to find (with a spider or something like this) out which website are blogs.

So I tried out too find swiss blogs with google and search for "permalink" (a keyword which is nearly in all blogs) but i found only around 40 Sites. Perhaps google search not for text in "navigation-items".

"permalink" isn't _the_ word, you can count on. in my blog - just as example - it's just called "link".

what about "calling" all swiss bloggers to register themselfs on _one_ portal (maybe a special site for this action)? as "mouth-to-mouth-propaganda" such an action should work - if a blogger is really active, he'll get the message and will act to be a part of the swiss blog-scene...

adrian: That "portal" exists already and it's called blog.ch :) No need for another one, IMHO.

How to count the number of Swiss weblogs? Some suggestions and estimates: Bitflux Blog :: How many Swiss Blogs? Part II...

yes, i know, that's what i ment by "on _one_ [existing] portal". but if they don't register on blog.ch there's maybe a special site/action needed - who knows.
i thaught, you need a feed of your blog to register ("submit your feed") your blog on blog.ch - and that's the problem: it depends on the definition on what's a blog (see above) ... is a blog a blog if it doesn't have a feed? etc.
can your register there, if you don't have a feed?

Sorry, my mistake. I thought I'd changed the text to say "Submit your blog" everywhere... guess I didn't. You can certainly submit your blog even if it doesn't have a feed!

> 1500 Swiss weblogs figure seems very optimistic for
> me at the moment
I do not think so... there are a LOT of teenagers that have blogs on skyblogs, u-blog or over-blog and they are all counted as french (i.e. from France) bloggers even though they are swiss, live and go to school in Switzerland. For those people a portal will not change much, they do not care about the whole blog world (as most of us see it) they just want to share text and images with friends.

Jerome, I think you're mentioning an important point with those teenagers: Some communities just don't need outside contact, they're happy with what they've got in their own "world". I guess this is also the model that Microsoft Spaces is going for.

By the way, I added a link to freeflux.net in the WeblogFAQ mentioned by leo above:
http://www.stefanbucher.net/weblogfaq/#25

Hope this helps to spread the word ;-)

Ooh, cool. Thank you very much, Stefan.

You manner of counting seems rather naive. First it's a single word query, second that term might be represented several times on one page.

As to the spider, querying Google with link based queries yields around 33K blogs in Switzerland.

But, and that has been brought up a lot here, does it matter how many Swiss Blogs there really are? Many bloggers truly don't care about blogosphere at all, and, why should they? The care for functionality over philosophy. Isn't the real question how many blogs are Swiss related? Or how many blogs are influencing the Swiss Market?

Regards Ben

Benjamin: I never said the google search was a definitive figure, just a figure for a start...

And yes, the problem with counting blogs starts with the definition of what's a blog...

And I agree with you, that it doesn't really matter, but a lot of people (especially the "old" media) seems to like those figures :)

Just got a mail from http://bloghotel.org, it's registered by a Swiss company. Stats on the frontpage:

Total : 1157 Bloggeurs
Articles Total: 2997
Commentaire Total: 1014

Either lots of trial blogs, or extremely lazy bloggers. If someone with better French skills could ask them for activity stats?

Passend auch zur Diskussion How many Swiss Blogs?, krzlich bei Klaus Eck gelesen:Die Zahl der Blogs ist in der Blogsphere nicht wirklich entscheidend, um die Relevanz derselben darzustellen. Viel wichtiger ist die Frage, wie werden die Blogs wahrgenommen: …

Others also try to count blogs, see http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/62535 (in German).