I’ll be honest: I’m not really all that into blogging about this Bloggasm article on relative losses in political blogs’ readership since October 2008, for a few reasons. First off, I’m not particularly convinced that the sample is relevant: if you look at the list, yes, most of the major ones are on there – but are they really representative? It’s been years since my last statistics class, but I can tell that there’s one heck of a selection bias going on in there. Second: there is no universe where Andrew Sullivan is ‘right of center,’ sorry. For that matter, Ann Althouse barely qualifies.
Third – and this is why I’m putting this up; some people that I privately showed the chart below the fold to insisted that I should – I think that it’s probably more significant to look at yearly trends anyway.
| Blog | Jun-08 | Oct-08 | May-09 | Oct-May | Jun-May |
| Daily Kos | 32.19 | 82.89 | 25.29 | -69% | -21% |
| C&L | 6.85 | 11.25 | 5.72 | -49% | -16% |
| FDL | 2.24 | 4.52 | 2.52 | -44% | 13% |
| Eschaton | 2.66 | 4.21 | 2.07 | -51% | -22% |
| America | 1.98 | 4.95 | 1.61 | -67% | -19% |
| WM | 1.02 | 3.19 | 1.71 | -46% | 68% |
| MyDD | 3.32 | 2.61 | 0.52 | -80% | -84% |
| TalkLeft | 2.11 | 1.4 | 0.68 | -51% | -68% |
| OpenLeft | 0.82 | 1.56 | 0.49 | -69% | -40% |
| Andrew Sullivan | 6.54 | 23.2 | 8.4 | -64% | 28% |
| Drudge Retort | 1.79 | 2.82 | 1.8 | -36% | 1% |
| 61.52 | 142.6 | 50.81 | -64% | -17% | |
| Hot Air | 9.84 | 23.71 | 19.59 | -17% | 99% |
| Instapundit | 6.99 | 10.7 | 11 | 3% | 57% |
| Michelle Malkin | 7.08 | 14.75 | 7.45 | -49% | 5% |
| AoSHQ | 1.43 | 4.1 | 2.59 | -37% | 81% |
| RS | 1.68 | 3.72 | 2.16 | -42% | 29% |
| Gateway | 0.62 | 2.13 | 1.12 | -47% | 81% |
| Althouse | 0.68 | 1.28 | 0.95 | -26% | 40% |
| Hugh Hewitt | 1.03 | 2.68 | 0.67 | -75% | -35% |
| Patterico | 0.5 | 0.81 | 0.46 | -43% | -8% |
| 29.85 | 63.88 | 45.99 | -28% | 54% |
Once you look at last year’s numbers, the trends become a lot more clear, for these specific sites. Personal preferences aside, electing a Democrat has turned out to be a traffic boost for the Right-oriented sites featured and a traffic depressor for the Left-oriented sites featured. I’d love to see the two-year numbers, so as to get rid of the distortion that even the beginning of the Presidential primary season was generating – but it looks like generally the Right-blogs featured here kept some of the traffic boost from the election, and generally the Left-blogs featured here did not. They, in fact, have been declining.
How relevant is this? Honestly, not very much – unless you’re an advertiser who’s trying to decide where your next ad buy is going to be, I suppose. And then only then if the site in question has set ad rates that assume future growth, and not shrinkage…
Moe Lane
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
Steve Maley
KnightsofMalta
Dan Spencer
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Horrible "study"
alexg (Diary) Thursday, June 18th at 2:05PM EST (link)Pretty weak sample of right leaning blogs; very skewed timeframes; highly dubious categorization of Sullivan as right wing; and weird omission of drudgereport (in the event that you consider “drudge retort” a blog, isn’t the real thing also a blog?)
Thanks for bringing it up – but just goofy. I think the diversification of blogs is also a story – MORE blogs popping up on the right, as people seek to voice their dissent. It’s not just reflected in retention of traffic post election – it’s also a galvanization of new voices.
So ignore the grouping
Neil Stevens (Diary) Thursday, June 18th at 2:31PM EST (link)Just look at the individual sites and draw your own conclusions.
Instapundit being an all around gainer is very interesting I think, since he’s a libertarian, not a conservative, from what I can tell.
When did the Trig Truther move to the Atlantic?
Who’s WM?
RS contributing editor, technical administrator, and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
Read the RedState Posting Rules
Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.
“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder
Just curious
Mark D Thursday, June 18th at 3:13PM EST (link)Was “Drudge Retort” intentional, or a typo?
You know you’ve reached rock bottom when you’re told you have character flaws by a man who hanged his predecessor in a military coup.
Drudge Retort
theonlysaneone Thursday, June 18th at 3:58PM EST (link)The Drudge Retort is its own separate blog. You can read it here:
http://drudge.com/
Thank you
Mark D Thursday, June 18th at 5:01PM EST (link)Much obliged sir. I was unaware of this site.
You know you’ve reached rock bottom when you’re told you have character flaws by a man who hanged his predecessor in a military coup.
Saying that blogging is dying due to reduced readership since right before the election is like saying the pumpkin industry is dead due to decreased interest since before Halloween - nt
Gyorc Nacain Thursday, June 18th at 4:03PM EST (link)Im sorry, can someone explain the chart a little better?
penguin2 (Diary) Thursday, June 18th at 6:23PM EST (link)Some of us are more challenged than others. I see a little of apples vs. oranges in this. But I get the trend percentages, are we talking Jun-O8 to May-O9? What is the unit of measurement? I mean what do those numbers in the first three columns represent?
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. – Benjamin Franklin
When Good stands up to Evil, Evil blinks. – Vassar Bushmills
Conservative Education: Suggested Reading List
Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots
anecdotal
Common_Cents (Diary) Thursday, June 18th at 8:46PM EST (link)I see the level of the left participation lower, as many who voted for The One, except for the rabid, are experiencing voters remorse. They are getting blindsided by Obama’s follies and do not want to hear the “i told you so’s”. They are now suffering from the aftermath of the hope/change drunken party, which was devoid of any common sense, reason, and vetting.
This wrecking ball is really hard to coherently defend. Instead they go away, remain silent, wondering to themselves, while the rabid left lob out stupid personal insults and never address the issues.
Obama=Golfer in Chief, Leading from,
behind, the Back Nine.Leaders don’t create movements. Movements create leaders. Get involved. Your future depends on it.
Govt “invests” YOUR tax money for POLITICAL return rather than economic return.
There are several factors at work...
scottwgraves Wednesday, June 24th at 2:42AM EST (link)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.