Friday, March 10, 2006

This must mean something

Looking at my traffic stats, I found something interesting. On Wednesday Ace linked to my post about prison movies. On Thursday, the Junk Yard Blog linked to my post on the Church arsons. Later in the day, Slate linked to that same post.

Both Ace and JYB sent over 200 readers this way. The Slate link brought less than 10 readers here.

If I worked for Gartner or Forrester, I would be tempted to spin this into a Grand Theory. Of course, the nature of the theory would depend on who was writing the check. I could say that this traffic differential shows that the typical blog reader is a restless, open-minded hunter of new information with an innate desire to verify and evaluate sources. In contrast, the readership of the MSM is unengaged, credulous, and happy to absorb the predigested content set in front of them. OTOH, I could say that this proves that most of the readers of the MSM see no value in blogs which means that the Army of Davids is no threat to the MSM hegemony in information space.

Like I said, it all depends on who signs the check.

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