Today’s Oregonian newspaper says that Portland is #2 in the country in terms of blogging - that only Austin, TX outranks us in terms of the number of residents who have either read or contributed to a blog in the last month. In Portland, that means that 14% of us.
Reporter Steve Woodward talked to several local bloggers to get the low-down on why Portland ranks so highly in the world of blogging, but as a Portland blogger myself I have my own theories. This is a very tech-savvy community (more evidence of this came yesterday when my boss mentioned that he’d gone to a meeting recently of SEO professionals in Portland - SEO being something I had never heard of until last year - and that they were no longer just a bunch of geeks), and Portlanders are fortunate to have free WiFi piped throughout the whole city these days. Blogs are free, the WiFi is free, and everyone’s got an opinion - sounds like the perfect storm to me.
For a more thoughtful analysis of the issue, however, see the whole Oregonian article. And chime in - why do you think so many Portlanders are bloggers or blog readers? Why do you read blogs?
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I think another reason is Portland’s high quotient of literature-philes. Easy access to books (awesome libraries, Powells) and the Internet (cafes and, again, libraries) fosters a culture of inquiry and eloquence (or at least a witty irreverence). And then there’s the pesky notion that Portland’s citizenry actually has an influence on the way things work around here — so many of us have developed a healthy relationship with our opinions.
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