According to the most recent census data, the United States currently has 201,000,000 adults aged 18-65. About 180,000,000 of these people are Internet users. The question I wanted to ask is what is the state of the blogosphere’s penetration into the public consciousness.

I make a large number of assumptions to make the data-set less complex.

• No statistically significant overlap between the print newspaper’s online and offline readership
• No statistically significant overlap between the online publications traffic and RSS subscribers.
• All the traffic data as provided by both the print circulation statistics and Compete traffic statistics represent unique readers.
• The percentage traffic to these sites coming from the U.S. is similar.

As a result, these numbers are just very rough estimates of how important each news source is relative to each other and how likely it is that your average American would have heard about each. Lets start with the raw data.

Mainstream Media

The first number is the total traffic statistics provided by Compete. The second number, offline circulation, is based on information found at Infoplease.

1. USA Today

11,514,000 + 2,500,000 = 14,014,000

2. New York Times

9,213,000 + 1,683,000 = 10,896,000

3. The Washington Post

6,723,000 + 960,000 = 7,683,000

4. The Wall Street Journal

2,459,000 + 2,000,000 = 4,459,000

5. Los Angeles Times

2,585,000 + 1,213,000 = 3,798,000

6. Chicago Tribune

1,867,000 + 957,000 = 2,824,000

7. New York Daily News

1,437,000 + 795,000 = 2,232,000

8. Houston Chronicle

1,498,000 + 692,000 = 2,190,000

9. New York Post

1,383,000 + 691,000 = 2,074,000

10. Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News

612,000 + 704,000 = 1,316,000

Blogosphere

I computed penetration statistics both with and without RSS feed subscribers. I treated feed subscribers (as shown by Google Feed Reader) the same way that I did with newspaper’s offline circulation. One caveat. The statistics provided by Google Feed Reader are wildly different than statistics reported elsewhere. In general, they underestimate feed subscribers as reported by Feedburner.

I left the raw data in for the blogs to aid in comparison later.

1. Engadget

• Total Penetration: .91
• Direct Penetration: .72%

1,304,000 + 345,000 = 1,649,000

2. Gizmodo

• Total Penetration: .82%
• Direct Penetration: .81%

1,471,000 + 17,900

3. Lifehacker

• Direct Penetration: .66%
• Penetration: .63%

1,136,000 + 63,000 = 1,199,000

4. Huffington Post

• Total Penetration: .46%
• Direct Penetration: .46%

832,000 + 7,000 = 839,000

5. Mashable

• Total Penetration: .45%
• Penetration: .44%

797,000 + 16,000 = 813,000

6. Ars Technica

• Total Penetration: .39%
• Direct Penetration: .38%

695,000 + 17,000 = 712,000

7. Boing Boing

• Total Penetration: .35%
• Direct Penetration: .34%

612,000 + 26,000 = 638,000

8. Techcrunch

• Total Penetration: .29%
• Penetration: .19%

352,000 + 169,000 = 521,000

9. Daily Kos

• Total Penetration: .23%
• Direct Penetration: .23%

413,000 + 17,000 = 430,000

10. I Can Has Cheezburger?

• Total Penetration: .14%
• Direct Penetration: .136%

245,000 + 8,900 = 253,900

Highest Penetration

1. USA Today, 6.9%

2. New York Times, 5.4%

3. The Washington Post, 3.82%

4. The Wall Street Journal, 2.22%

5. Los Angeles Times, 1.88%

6. Chicago Tribune, 1.40%

7. New York Daily News, 1.11%

8. Houston Chronicle, 1.08%

9. New York Post, 1.03%

10. Engadget, .91%

Highest Online Penetration

1. USA Today, 6.4%

2. New York Times, 5.11%

3. The Washington Post, 3.73%

4. The Wall Street Journal, 1.36%

5. Los Angeles Times, 1.43%

6. Chicago Tribune, 1.03%

7. Engadget, .91%

8. Houston Chronicle, .83%

9. Gizmodo, .82%

10. New York Daily News, .79%

Web 2.0 Roundup

A few interesting things can be drawn from this. The first, is that the only two blogs to make the list in any significant fashion (Engadget and Gizmodo) would more closely be called “Web Magazines” than the sort of raw, citizen journalism that blogging was initially touted as. More positively, though, I am surprised that any blogs managed to make it into the list. Considering the relative budgets of mainstream media versus even the largest blogs, it is a huge accomplishment to manage to beat out any of the major publications.

Blogging still has a long way to go before it can really compete with mainstream media, but if these numbers are any small indication — it’s getting there.

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