Blog Readership Down?
Posted by Bill Dupray
on Jun 18 2009 Filed under Politics.
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Bloggasm ran some numbers comparing the traffic at some larger blogs, 10 from the left and 10 from the right, from October through May. While he concedes that it is normal to see a post-election dropoff, some sites didn’t bounce back all that well by May. The lefty sites, in particular remain well off their October highs.
Moe Lane notes that Obama’s victory could be expected to take the wind out of lefty bloggers’ sails. After all, they are not fighting anyone anymore. But he adds another layer of statistics, which paint a more accurate picture of the current state of the blogosphere. And the righties are doing much better than their lefty counterparts.
Here is Moe’s chart, which adds in the stats from June 2008 as well, which probably gives a better baseline from which to check the trends. I only included the righty blogs. Click Moe’s link if you want the lefties. Obviously the more you can get the bump from the election itself out of the calculations, the more accurate your overall picture going forward.
Since PR, for some inexplicable reason, didn’t make the top 10 list (probably number 11), let me just add our stats to the list.
| June 2008 | October 2008 | May 2009 | Oct-May | June-May |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26,369 | 165,624 | 111,633 | -33% | +423% |
Our October-May drop was less than all but two of the top 10 and we blew them all away for growth in the June-May period. We may be smaller, but I am sure Ed Morrissey and Ace will be sleeping with one eye open tonight. After all, you don’t want to wake up at 3:00 a.m. and find Clyde staring down at you with that grin of his.
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LMAO. Nice, Bill. Watch out Ed and Ace!
I had no idea there was such a big drop-off after the Big Three.
From the site you linked to, I see lefty blogs down 17% June to May, and righty blogs up 54%. Good news.
Odd that HuffPo wasn’t on the left list. Even odder that flaming douche Sullivan is gaining readership.
Several things seem to be at work here…
1. RECENT ELECTION CYCLE: Change from a Republican to a Democrat in the White House shifts the enthusiasm and activism from one group to another, impacting the activity of their respective blog communities.
2. THE EVOLUTION OF THE BLOG FORMAT: Blogs used to be the domain of political renegades. They became more mainstream and commercialized. For a short time, they experienced exponential growth. I believe we are on the downward side of the blog lifecycle curve.
3. RISE OF ALTERNATIVES: Alternative new media publishing tools makes the blog format one of many choices for both the reader and the publisher. Micro-blogging, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, etc. all compete for much of the same audience.
Over the next few years, I suspect political enthusiasts and news junkies will still crave the original content and instant analysis that the blog format is so well-suited. However, with so many alternatives, especially in the area of mobile media, I think we will continue to see an overall decline in blog traffic for all but the most robust blog communities.
Better change the security code on your home alarm system, William. Three o-clock in the morning comes awfully early …
This time, don’t base it on your kids’ birth dates.
Just watch out for the .12 gauge fella. Leaves a nasty mark.
Dan Rather, is that you?
Do they still consider HuffPo to be a blog? Seems more like a news site/aggregator.
Arkady congratulated us on our numbers, and I wanted to thank him for that and let him know that I accidentally erased his comment. Sorry, bro. We appreciate it, and I don’t want you thinking we valued it so little that we erased it, but somehow I managed to do so.
Scott-
Didn’t you know that HuffPo is a legitimate newspaper now? I mean come on, they are even allowed to ask the president questions at his press conferences!
I am just not worthy of existing in your comment section. I understand.
*bows head*
*cowers in corner*
You are fine Arkady. Scott was reprimanded at yesterday’s editors’ meeting. He is required to attend a class on basic keyboard use within the next month and then he will be on supervised probation for the next 6 months. After all, if we are going to be running a big-time blog like this, we expect competence and professionalism to start at the top.