WPMU: How Many Blogs?

Responses to survey of WordPress Multi-User WPMU) admins, June 2006. This document describes responses to the "how many blogs at the site?" question, and to a couple of related questions.
I'll blog about this at How Do You MU? I'll blog in different posts about reponses to other questions on the survey.
You can email me: andrew dot watson at the big dot-com beginning with y.
This document first posted July 10, updated: (not yet).

How Many Blogs?

All 30 respondents provided the number of blogs at their sites. The following statistics describe these responses:
I do not feel that I am breaching the confidentiality of responses when I remark that the largest site is WordPress.com; its home page currently tells me that there are 252,000 blogs there, which represents an increase of around 40,000 blogs in the last month or so. This large and growing site has a powerful influnece on the first two statistics provided above. Hence the median is a better indicator of the "typical" WPMU site.
WordPress.com was the only site to report a number of blogs in six figures. Two sites reports a number of blogs in five figures, with one of them, edublogs.org, having recently passed the 10,000 blog mark.

How Many Admins?

Of the 30 responses to this question, 23 were that the WPMU site had a single administrator. (I include among these 23 the response of 1.2.) Six of the sites had two administrators, and one had four administrators.

Who Can Blog at the Site?

Most WPMU sites of which I am aware allow open registration. For example, one can go to WordPress.com and request a new blog. Even sites provided for the use of a specific community allow open registration. For example, the home page of edublogs.org is explicit that the offer of a free blog is limited to "educational professionals," but it also allows the creation of a new blog without proof that the creator is indeed an educator.
Other sites use an application or verification process for blog creation. Some of these are WPMU sites used by educational institutions to provide a blogging platform. In order to create a blog at Blogging@Wooster, it is necessary to have a valid Wooster College email address.
One of the decisions to be made when setting up a WPMU site is whether to allow open registration. I have used the term "host" for a WPMU site that does, and "network" for a WPMU site that does not.

Interview

The following email interview with John Koontz, one of the people behind Digital Photography Blogs, includes one site's reasons for choosing to be a "network," rather than an open-registration "host." The reasons may be specific to this site, but are not less interesting for that reason. I'm not going to preface this interview with a description of the site, because I've already linked to its informative home page.
Digital Photography Blogs was the only "network" to which I sent the survey. It, in the person of one of John's partners, provided one of the 30 responses. The first interview question picks up on the survey response.

Question: In response to the question about "distinctive features of your site," your partner mentioned "preference analysis tools." What does this term mean? Is it a recommendation engine?
Answer: Yes, we (Glued Ideas) are developing a recommendation engine based on an advanced preference analysis tools.

Question: You mention Glue as open-source. I tried to look it up via Google and SourceForge, but the word glue is so common that it's tricky. Do you have publicly available info about it yet?
Answer: Yes and no.  It is a little hard to explain without revealing the entire project, but parts of the service will be open-source while others are proprietary.  Only parts that need to remain secure will be proprietary and held by Glued Ideas.  However, while some  aspects are proprietary, the entire service is free for the general public.  Additionally, we have plans for an open API to allow others to build additional tools for the community.

Question: I note that "spotlight on glue project features" is one of the reasons given for running your WPMU site.
Answer: Glued Press is a division of Glued Ideas.  The goal of Glued Press is to deliver highly relevant content to users utilizing Glue technology.  Glued Press will be a profitable entity on its own while showcasing the value Glue can provide to site owners and users.

Question: Why did you choose to require application for a dpblog, as opposed to allowing bloggers to create their own? (This is perhaps the line that separates a "network" from a "site." I can think of many good answers, but don't want to lead you into "my list" of answers.)
Answer: There are two main reasons.  First, as DPBlogs will be the first site to be integrated Glue, we wanted to put our best foot forward.  Second, we will shortly be implementing a revenue sharing program on DPBlogs and aim to make the best impression with potential advertisers.  Both reasons mean we need to maintaining tight control over the quality of the blogs.  In the future, we hope to have premium blogs (those which require application) and free general blogs.

Question: Have you been happy with this decision?
Answer: Our decision to require application for DPBlogs has definitely restricted the growth of the number of blogs.  However, doing so provides a very clean and informative site.  Readers can quickly find good content and blogs which fit their specific area(s) of interest. 

Question: "Flickr is, or can be used as, a photoblogging tool." Do you agree with this statement? How would you position dpblogs relative to flickr?
Answer: DPBlogs loves Flickr!  But to get to your question, if your definition of a blog is having the ability to present content in regular intervals regarding photography in reverse chronological order, then yes, Flickr is, or can be used as a photoblogging tool.  However, there is a difference between a photoblog and a blog about photography.  Flickr thrives in the ability to build community around the photos.  Besides obvious presentation differences, DPBlogs is building community through photos as well as content about the entire art of photography, including news, gear reviews, tips and tricks, tutorials, etc...  DPBlogs is a resource where any photographer, amateur or professional, can find content that fits their interests and skills.  DPBlogs actually uses Flickr to serve the individual photos.  Additionally, it is possible that you may find a traditional photoblog on DPBlogs in the future.  I wouldn't count anything out!

Thanks to John, and all the best with Digital Photography Blogs!