How do the interests of bloggers intersect with the interest of corporations? Should corporate communications professionals reach out directly to bloggers? Are bloggers different from other communications channels?

In an attempt to better understand the interplay of the blogosphere and corpoate communications, blog-search engine Technorati and public relations firm Edelman surveyed subscribers of Technorati's e-mail newsletter to study their interaction with each other.

A key finding of the survey is that the blogger respondents are, to a large degree, seeking to position themselves as authorities in their field. That was the number one reason they gave for blogging.

This is in stark contrast to a consumer survey conducted by AOL earlier this year, which found that many bloggers are not using their blogs for gain, either professional or financial, but simply as an outlet. Nearly half said that blogging was a form of therapy for them.

The Technorati survey was mailed to 30,000 subscribers of its newsletter, and promoted on the Technorati web site. There were 821 respondents. AOL surveyed 600 Internet users over the age of 18 who maintain at least one blog.

The Technorati survey found a high number of bloggers had been contacted by companies or PR representatives.

The survey also found a certain level of skepticism about corporate blogs. About half found them at least somewhat trustworthy. But the other half called them only occasionally trustworthy or not at all trustworthy.

The bloggers were far more likely to trust a blog created by an individual employee.

When looking for information about a company, bloggers said they were most likely to trust other bloggers to steer them right.

For an in-depth look at the ramifications of blogs on business, read eMarketer's The Business of Blogging report."

Few US adults are aware of blogs — just 7% say they are "very familiar" with them, compared to 56% who say they are "not at all familiar." Similarly, few read blogs regularly. In all age groups, most people say they never read blogs, although readership is higher among younger people.

As the survey's authors point out, news consumption is usually higher among older people than among younger people, suggesting that older people might be a receptive blog audience. And indeed, when the numbers are broken down by Internet usage, a different picture emerges. Just 33% of those age 65 and over use the Net, but of that online population, 28% read blogs. That figure is more in line with younger groups. For example, 91% of adults 18 to 29 years-old use the Net, and of those, 44% read blogs.

A major force behind the expansion of blogging in the past few years has been politics, and many of the most popular blogs are political in nature. But a Gallup poll conducted in December 2004 found that few Americans get their daily dose of news from blogs. Rather, 51% reported getting their daily news updates from local TV news, 44% said they got it from local newspapers, and 39% got it from cable news stations. In fact, just 3% got news from blogs every day, less than radio talk shows and broadcast network news.

But there is one group that flocks to blogs for daily updates — bloggers. As reported in Blog Readers Say Blogging Is Big, most bloggers read multiple blogs every day. And about three-fourths of bloggers read blogs because they feel the sites expose them to news they can't find elsewhere, and provide them with a better perspective.

Of course, blogs are for more than news — they are used for keeping track of personal lives, businesses, goings-on in a city, and more. Blogging is still a relatively new phenomenon, and as familiarity with it expands, blogs may become more widely used.

To keep informed about trends in the blogosphere, stayed tuned to the eNews page for more articles, and take a look in our eStat Database for more data on this topic.