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Australians don't like to blog - that's the controversial thesis of this article in the According to research reported in the paper:

Of the top 25,000 blogs globally, around 9000 are in English [..] Of those, only 75 originate in Australia. But there are 420 million native English speakers in the world. "With Australia's population of 21 million, we comprise 5 per cent of English speakers. But with 75 blogs out of 9000, we comprise less than 1 per cent of English blogs. We are underrepresented by a factor of six or so."

The author blames connectivity (slow internet connections) for part of the explanation, but also the "laconic" character of your stereotypical Aussie. Cultural issues might be to blame; blogging would seem to be one of the things you could do to qualify as a , I hear similar sentiments (who are these bloggers anyway?) directed towards bloggers often enough on some texts and emails to Pods and Blogs.

But wanting to climb on a digital soapbox isn't the only reason people blog. The desire to communicate, keep in touch with friends and share experiences is a pretty widespread human impulse. Blogging is also thin from much of Africa, though in that case infrastructure is almost entirely the issue. But in Africa, I'm told, mobile phones are used in much the same way the web is used in other parts of the world. While Australians may not like to blog, blogging is merely one way of participating online, one that appeals to a particular kind of person. Being under-represented on blogs, may not necessarily mean Australians are not participating online, or not engaging in blog like behaviour in sites like MySpace, Facebook etc. Would be interesting to see some stats.