Blogs can make money, and are not distinct from mainstream media, is the verdict of the first instalment of the Technorati report 2008.

Technorati’s ‘State of the Blogosphere 2008’ report is their annual assessment of what’s hot and what’s not in blogging.

This time round they ‘resolved to go beyond the numbers of the Technorati Index’. In order to try and make a more fruitful analysis they talked to the bloggers directly.

For the first time bloggers have been asked about:

• The role of blogging in their lives

• The tools, time, and resources used to produce their blogs

• How blogging has impacted them personally, professionally, and financially

It’s best to look at the report in full for yourself but here’ are a few of the highlights:

‘Blogs are profitable’: The majority of the 1,290 respondents (from 66 countries, across six continents) have advertising. Among those who advertise, the mean annual investment is $1,800 and the mean annual revenue is $6,000. For the lucky ones with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month the mean annual revenue is $75k +. Technorati flags up that the medians are lower than those figures.

‘Blogs are here to stay’: On average the bloggers have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day. Blogs have representation in top-10 web site lists across all key categories, and have become integral to the media ecosystem.

US bloggers: 57 per cent male; 58 per cent aged 35+; 56 per cent in full-time employment; 26 per cent single (surprising, no?)

Blogs are not distinct from the mainstream: “Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs,” the summary reads.

Technorati’s methodology is described here. The main question that springs to mind is whether the type of people likely to respond to the random requests for participants (and perhaps engage in a bit of blog-boast) might have more success on average than the people who ignore these kind of requests.  But is it possible to find bloggers at random, to represent the mass blogging population?