Comments on: Blog Traffic from Mainstream Media

By: sortapundit

sortapundit — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 22:13:33 +0000

Buying the paper doesnât mean the bloody thing actually gets READ.

Damn right. The only paper I buy is the Wall Street Journal, and the only reason I still do that is because I used to work for them. Very rarely do I sit down and read the thing (Friday excepted: the crossword and the personal journal kick ass).

By: Bithead

Bithead — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 20:07:42 +0000

James; Point about online versions taken.

Sortapundit; And isn't that interesting? Most bloggers have their most recent readership figures out there for all to see, and verified by some commercial service, or in the case of those in the eco-system, by one of their competitors.

And more; We know, in the case of bloggers, normally on a page by page basis, what is being read. We can't do that with the papers, for teh reasons that James demonstrates; Buying the paper doesn't mean the bloody thing actually gets READ.

By: sortapundit

sortapundit — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:05:08 +0000

Could it be possible that more people actually read Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit each day than read Howard Kurtz? Does Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs actually have more people laying eyeballs on what he writes each day than say any one column at MSNBC?

I have no idea who draws the highest readership, but I'd wager that the average Charles Johnson post, partisan and tendentious it will be, gets more engaged readers than the column of your choice at MSNBC.

By: Sortapundit

Sortapundit — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 18:54:24 +0000

Give Me All Your Money
The point, I think, that links what I was talking about earlier with what John is saying here is that it's all about how engaged the reader is (on that point, James Joyner uses the same term here). I have no idea who draws the highest readership, but...

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 17:05:36 +0000

Bithead: Sure. But this applies to mentions in the online versions of said papers, which are presumably pretty well read. Indeed, I usually recycle the paper edition of WaPo but almost invariably read at least part of it online.

And this seems to be true, too, of online-only versions of MSM articles.

By: Bithead

Bithead — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:54:29 +0000

Well, there's something else at work here, too.
While being mentioned on a top-shelf blog will cetaily create traffic on your blog... (can YOU say "INSTA-LANCHE"?) such a mention has somehting a bit in the local paper doesn't have... the ability to create an actual link.

Yes, the paper can put your URL up, but, it's not the same. Clicking on a newspaper may get you weird looks in the office, but will produce little else.

By: Jeff Quinton

Jeff Quinton — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 14:33:59 +0000

A topic was mentioned on Laura Ingraham back in the summer and the ensuing searches on that topic gave me a huge spike. Granted, my blog wasn't mentioned by name or URL.