Blogs and bloggers were subject of several studies so far, however the readers and commenters were still unknown - until now. A recent study of University of California, Irvine, discusses the blog-reading habits of 15 participants (if 15 blog readers are enough to draw a complete picture and if there are cultural differences among the nations is another question that would be wort considering).

Maybe the fact of having done that study itself is more interesting than its results: so the researchers (led by Eric Baumer, doctoral candidate at UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences; Mark Sueyoshi, international studies and East Asian cultures undergraduate student; and Bill Tomlinson, informatics professor) found out that there are "lurkers" as well as savvy commenters, that there are different opinions about what makes a blog, that reading a blog has become a habit, like checking e-mails or reading the news, and, mostly surprising, that readers feel a "responsibility to make insightful contributions". In other words: all quiet on the western front. (Source)