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News Stand

This is a brief look at how mainstream news sources (loosely speaking) compare to blogs. For traffic data, I used an average between Compete and Quantcast. For most of the other trending data I used Quantcast. A few things that weren’t taken into account: RSS subscribers, print circulation, and the traffic generated by the networks some of these blogs belong to.

Traffic measuring services are notoriously fickle, so these numbers can only be seen as a barometer.

Sample - [Source] [Traffic] [Yearly Growth]


Mainstream Media

1. New York Times - 15,360,000 - 102%

2. USA Today - 12,380,000 - 34.3%

3. Forbes - 9,520,000 - 69.6%

4. The Washington Post - 7,800,000 - 25.2%

5. CNET - 7,220,000 - 20.1%

6. Los Angeles Times - 5,030,000 - 116%

7. The Wall Street Journal - 4,410,000 - 207.2%

8. Wired - 3,260,000 - 387.3%

9. New York Daily News - 2,719,327 - 194.4%

10. Chicago Tribune - 2,580,000 - 86.3%


Blogs

1. Huffington Post - 3,630,000 - 483%

2. Gizmodo - 2,890,000 - 160.5%

3. Lifehacker - 2,120,000 - 179.1%

4. Boing Boing - 1,480,000 - 293.3%

5. Engadget - 1,390,000 - 153.6%

6. Techcrunch - 1,140,000 - 766.2%

7. Ars Technica - 717,000 - 226.4%

8. Mashable - 655,000 - 252.9%

9. Daily Kos - 566,000 - 109.7%

10. Read Write Web - 360,000 - 1833.3%


Top Ten

1. New York Times - 15,360,000 - 102%

2. USA Today - 12,380,000 - 34.3%

3. Forbes - 9,520,000 - 69.6%

4. The Washington Post - 7,800,000 - 25.2%

5. CNET - 7,220,000 - 20.1%

6. Los Angeles Times - 5,030,000 - 116%

7. The Wall Street Journal - 4,410,000 - 207.2%

8. Wired - 3,260,000 - 387.3%

9. Huffington Post - 3,630,000 - 483%

10. Gizmodo - 2,890,000 - 160.5%


More Trends

According to Quantcast, the top blogs and mainstream media sites share an extremely similar demographic makeup. Both sources skew male, more educated and more affluent. Not surprisingly, many of the top blogs are slanted towards technology and politics, while the top mainstream sources lean more heavily towards finance and general news.

According to Compete, in aggregate, the mainstream media sites listed have grown at an average of 124% over the last year. The blogs have grown 445% over the same period. Especially at the lower end of the spectrum, a big part of that growth has been the result of dramatic shifts in targeting or content. Notice the trend in this example -

In September of 2007, both ReadWriteWeb and Techcrunch saw substantial increases in their traffic which has continued to increase at a high pitch since. The same could be said about the Huffington Post in December of last year. The mainstream media sources have been relatively stable by comparison.

While only two blogs broke into the top ten list, the trending data prove that blogs are growing quickly as a medium. The big question is whether blogs will be able to reach the popularity of the more mainstream sources while still retaining their independence, or is the future of blogging to nurture yourself into a juicy target for take over?

(Image) (RSS)

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