A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project has found while more people are reading blogs, the percentage creating them grew more slowly. And a large majority of American Internet users still don't know what they are (?!?!).

An excerpt from an Associated Press story posted on Yahoo! News:

Readership of online journals known as blogs grew significantly in 2004, driven by increased awareness of them during the presidential campaign and other major news events, according to a study released Sunday.

Twenty-seven percent of online adults in the United States said in November they read blogs, compared with 17 percent in a February survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Blogs that cover the tsunami disaster and relief efforts are bound to boost readership further, said Lee Rainie, the project's director.

"The tsunami is one of those cataclysmic news moments where lots of people's perceptions change," Rainie said. "Awareness of blogs will grow dramatically. There's so much attention to the coverage on blogs and Web sites and first-person video as primary news sources." ...

Though blog readership jumped, the percentage of online Americans who write blogs grew only slightly — to 7 percent in November, up from 5 percent early in the year. Blog creators tend to be male, affluent, well-educated and young; 70 percent of them have high-speed connections at home, and 82 percent have been online at least six years.

Despite the attention to blogging, a large number of Americans remain clueless — only 38 percent of Internet users know what a blog is: online agglomerations of ideas, information and links, usually presented with the most recent postings on top, and often offering a mechanism for visitors to post comments.

Addendum: A BBC story on the study. It has lots of useful background links about blogging attached to it.