The new forms of written online communication offer a great resource for researchers interested in language variation and use, but more large-scale systematic research into the nature of the data is needed. For instance, Swedish blog data is often described as more informal and spoken in nature than traditional edited written material but overall systematic comparisons are lacking. This short communication contributes systematic comparisons between blog data and spoken and written registers by comparing measures such as type/token ratios and word frequencies. Type/token ratios of blog texts are found to lie between those for interactive speech and formal edited writing, whereas the distribution of words from different frequency bands is closer to the written material. Comparison of the ten most frequent word forms indicates that blog data resembles formal edited writing from a structural perspective, but also suggests that further studies into features of personal involvement may provide additional insights.
