One of my recent Internet Daily columns about blogs has turned into a Rashomon experience. What you read depends on who you are.
Fred Wilson, a venture investor, was irritated by my comment that “no one reads blogs.” On his own Weblog, he wrote, “Somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000 people per month read my blog,” he said, suggesting that was a pretty good audience for one guy passing along thoughts about his kids, MP3 download recommendations, and business strategies.
Meanwhile, Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion picked up on the theme in my report. It’s not the relatively small audiences that most blogs have, it’s the quality of the readership -- the influence and visibility they themselves have, and which they can also give.
Wilson claimed that porno-politico Wonkette.com had 140,000 visits one day last week. He doubted many “old media” journalists could generate such interest.
Howard Stern has millions of listeners, too. But which audience do you really want to reach -- Stern’s or the smaller-yet-certainly more influential cadre that tunes into Don Imus?
My intent is not to diss blogs but to praise them. Fred, the simple fact I have seen is, not only are they read by relatively few people, fewer seem to care about them. I have probably written a dozen columns leading with Weblog stories. Uniformly, they are poorly read.
By comparison -- since you asked, Fred (Thanks!) -- there are about 300,000 subscribers to Internet Daily. Even if each of Wonkette’s visits was a different user, Net Daily’s reach is twice as big -- never mind its pickup by newspapers and other outlets through syndication.
And I don’t talk dirty.
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