There’s been some good to and fro going on in media-land. LA Times proudly produced figures that their traffic had increased by 66% and then Gawker Media stirred the pot by pointing out that they had double the traffic with a fraction of the staff.
With an editorial staff of about 700LA Times produces 127 million page views a month, while Gawker claims to create 254 million page views amonth with 8- staff. Silicon Alley Insider published this list of traffic for their sites:
Gizmodo 73.5m
Kotaku 44.3m
Lifehacker 25.6m
Gawker 18.9m
Fleshbot 17.4m
Jezebel 15.5m
Consumerist 13.7m
Jalopnik 13.4m
Deadspin 12.6m
io9 8.8m
Defamer 6.4m
Valleywag 3.3m
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
I think an important thing to remember here is, who is truly a content creator and who is an aggregator? The more localized a venue is, the more they will need to create content that fits their local demographic. They are serving a different type of constituency. Many of the blogs on your list lean more toward aggregation than original content. Aggregation is a ton easier than research and creation.
The bigger questions are- what is the total aggregate quotient for most newspapers (via the AP, etc.) and should they delivering any aggregate message at all? Localization is becoming a fact of the future, in so many ways. A localization mindset, mixed with a larger global outlook, will begin to change how we view everything. It forces the question of what gets produced and where? Should we be paying for our products and foods to be shipped half way around the world or should we be trying to figure out how to maximize what is local to us? Its a boutique (or regional) vs. mass market question.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:23 am