Recent research by Gallup Poll on American activities online shows that blog readership has remained stable for the past year. This is a surprising result given that the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that blog readership in 2004 grew by 58 percent.

Considering that research undertaken by Technorati suggests that the blogosphere size continues to double approximately every 5.5 months, could it be that people prefer expressing their own opinions rather than reading other people’s?

Bloggers, such as Steve Rubel, point out that it is difficult to trust statistics as there is no standard method for measuring blog readership. Some also point out that merely asking people if they read blogs (as Gallup did) is not an accurate measurement, as many may not realise that they are reading blogs at all.

One optimistic blogger even makes the comparison of blogging to colour TV stating; “it took a long time for colour TVs to get into nearly every household. A lot of people back then said ‘well I’ve got a perfectly good black and white set, what do I need colour for?’ Today it’s hard to even find a black-and-white TV. We’ve got a long way to go before blogs have reached their potential.”

It certainly seems premature to envisage the beginning of the end of the blog readership.