Newspaper blog boom

January 18, 2007 by Jeff Jarvis
,

Frank Ba
reports that newspaper blogs’ audience is growing fast (of course, that is in part because so many of them are new):

The number of visitors to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers grew 210% in the past year, far outpacing growth to the parent sites. Nielsen/NetRatings found that while the unique audience to online newspapers grew 9% from December 2005 to December 2006, the number of visitors to blog pages at the top newspapers skyrocketed and accounted for 13% of the parent sites’ total traffic. Here are the most popular online newspaper blogs and their estimated December audiences:
* USATODAY.com blogs, 1.239 million
* The New York Times’ blogs, 1.173 million
* SFGate blogs, 515,000
* Washingtonpost.com blogs, 433,000
* Boston.com blogs, 388,000.

Note also that the definition of blogs is up for grabs. Many times, newspapers use blogging software as a means to get up news updates and such; it is the world’s lightest, easiest, cheapest content management system and it’s a smart use. But not all these blogs link out in conversation. Still, I’ll bet this helps take the cooties off the word ‘blog’ in newsrooms.

  • Pingback: RegioBlogs » Archivo » Los periódicos y los Blogs

  • Pingback: Blogs increase newspaper traffic online at Tom Raftery’s I.T. views

  • Garbanzo

    Haven’t seen these stats anywhere (maybe Jarvis can pipe in), but wonder what the traffic is like on blogs versus other features, as well as how much traffic is driven by commenting.

  • Pingback: robhyndman.com » Blog Archive » Newspaper Blog Growth

  • http://www.donatacom.com/blog.shtml Terry Heaton

    Our experience with WKRN reveals similar findings. I think, frankly, that the blogs are more interesting that the “stories” written by the same people. Call me a nut, but I think that might be a factor in this.

  • Pingback: SmartChristian.com » Blog Archive »

  • http://www.tweetportal.com Twitter Directory

    It’ll be interesting to see how newspapers will use microblogs. Traditional journalists must be getting so tired as they not only log their stories, but also now get involved in the promotion of those stories across multiple platforms.

  • http://www.old-newspaper-articles.com/ Old Newspaper Articles

    It’s really the best of both worlds isn’t it? For what it is worth I believe dead tree media will be here long after we are all gone. There is nothing better for a historical research project than the ephemeral points of veiw in the news of the day.