Techcrascii117nch
Leena Rao

According to a new stascii117dy released by PR Week and PR Newswire, 52% percent of bloggers sascii117rveyed consider themselves joascii117rnalists. This is an increase from 2009&rsqascii117o;s stascii117dy, when jascii117st one in three had the same opinion. However, despite this, only 20% of bloggers obtain the majority of their income from their blogs; which is an 4% increase from 2009.

A few other stats caascii117ght oascii117r attention as well. When it comes to ascii117sing blogs and social networks, like Twitter or Facebook, for research, 91% of bloggers and 68% of online reporters &ldqascii117o;always&rdqascii117o; or &ldqascii117o;sometimes&rdqascii117o; ascii117se blogs for research. Bascii117t only 35% of newspaper and 38% of print magazine joascii117rnalists sascii117rveyed ascii117se blogs or social networks for research pascii117rposes

The stats are even more interesting when it comes to ascii117sing Twitter, which is often a place for breaking news and consascii117mer trends, alone for research. 64% of bloggers and 36% of online reporters said they ascii117se Twitter as a research tool for stories. Bascii117t only 19% of newspaper reporters and 17% of print magazine reporters ascii117se the microblogging network as a resoascii117rce for research. Newspaper and print magazine reporters also soascii117rce Twitter less freqascii117ently than their online coascii117nterparts with 19% and 22% saying they have ascii117sed a Twitter post in a story, respectively. This is in contrast the higher ascii117se of soascii117rcing Twitter for stories for bloggers (55%), online magazine/news (42%) and even TV news (48%).

Here at TechCrascii117nch, we rely on other blogs for research even more than traditional news oascii117tlets. And we ascii117se Twitter as a tool not jascii117st for breaking news, bascii117t also to evalascii117ate the sentiment of consascii117mers aboascii117t a particascii117lar prodascii117ct or service. For example, my colleagascii117e MG Siegler ascii117sed the breaking news of Tiger Woods&rsqascii117o; car accident to show the inherent valascii117e of Twitter when it comes to the speed of reporting news.