Comments on: May ’09 political blog readership 53% lower than it was in October ’08

By: Jason Gallimore

Jason Gallimore — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:48:43 +0000

Interesting statistics…I wonder how the growth of blogging in general will help to reverse those downward trends as more and more people begin to read blogs more regularly.

By: Rogers Cadenhead

Rogers Cadenhead — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:21:54 +0000

drudge.com is as much of a blog as drudgereport.com I get that a lot, but the front page is just one way to look at the Retort. Here's another view of today's posts that shows it's very much a blog.

By: Scott W. Graves

Scott W. Graves — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:06:52 +0000

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.

By: Marshall

Marshall — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:09:31 +0000

It would be a very interesting thing to analyze a larger swathe of blogs – 100-200 at a time – and take a more precise litmus test of their political affiliations.

By this analysis you have sites that aren’t quite blogs (e.g. -townhall – it’s a magazine with a cluttered assembly of blogs; drudge.com is as much of a blog as drudgereport.com), and the samples are certainly biased. I think a blog could actually thrive by analyzing the popularity of other blogs on the netispherewww (and thus rise to the top of its own charts!).

By: Rogers Cadenhead

Rogers Cadenhead — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:02:14 +0000

I’m not surprised to see liberal blogs fall further than conservative ones after the election, because being in the opposition has in general been good for blogs. That’s one of the reasons liberal blogs have grown bigger and drawn more traffic than their conservative counterparts.

I noted on my blog that the Retort’s drop is closer to that of conservative blogs than the other liberals. That’s unexpected.

By: vanderleun

vanderleun — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:05:43 +0000

METHINKS Owens didn’t know the difference.

Sloppy sourcing and sloppy categories.

Sloppy seconds all around. Feh.

By: genghis

genghis — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:54:25 +0000

Then he should’ve put the blog’s title above the URL, Bob. Just looking at the URL gives the clear impression that it’s actually The Drudge Report. The amount of research it took for Mr. Owens to come up with these mind-blowing observations of…something…took about as much effort as looking up scores on the sports page. It’s not as if he alone has the secret code to access Sitemeter’s stats. But even then, he still manages to put together a sloppy and amateurish piece of work.