Blog Watch

At the blog conference at Martinsville last year there was a lot of discussion in the market forces of blogs. Basically it was agreed that the blogosphere was self regulating- if someone didn't like the way one blog reported their solution was to read another blog. 

I thought it would be interesting to see what happened to the blogs during the week of the Virginia Tech tragedy and see where people were turning when they wanted to get news.

Included in this list is every Virginia blog that publishes their stats with Sitemeter.  If you would like to be included in this in the future just let me know you are using a public Sitemeter counter.

First, the week before the Tech tragedy:

Week of April 9th-April 15th, Daily Average

1.  Not Larry Sabato---- 2,447 Visitors Per Day
2.  Raising Kaine----------1,883 Visitors Per Day
3.  BVBL-------------------------635 Visitors Per Day
4.  Bearing Drift--------------432 Visitors Per Day
5.  Virginia Progressive----330 Visitors Per Day
6.  Bacon's Rebellion---------328 Visitors Per Day
7.  750 Volts--------------------93 Visitors Per Day
8.  The Ward View------------85 Visitors Per Day
9.  SLANTBlog------------------67 Visitors Per Day
10.  BYP----------------------------42 Visitors Per Day

Now the week of the tragedy:

Week of April 16th-April 22nd, Daily Average

1.  Raising Kaine----------3,596 Visitors Per Day (Up 1,713 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
2.  Not Larry Sabato---- 3,414 Visitors Per Day (Up 967 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
3.  BVBL-------------------------700 Visitors Per Day (Up 65 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
4.  Bacon's Rebellion---------533 Visitors Per Day (Up 205 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
5.  Bearing Drift--------------388 Visitors Per Day (Down 44 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
6.  BYP----------------------------365 Visitors Per Day (Up 323 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
7.  Virginia Progressive----304 Visitors Per Day (Down 26 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
8.  The Ward View-------------98 Visitors Per Day (Up 13 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)
9.  SLANTBlog-------------------90 Visitors Per Day (Up 23 Per Day from 4/19-4/15)
10.  750 Volts--------------------82 Visitors Per Day (Down 11 Per Day from 4/9-4/15)

On the daily count, both Raising Kaine and NLS went up by almost 2,000 visitors a day early in the week.  The really interesting thing between us was with traffic increasing almost to the point of doubling normal days early in the week the difference between NLS and RK was unchanged from a normal day, with NLS about 500 visitors out front.  However, this was a story that people wanted instant news on. When I went out of town Wednesday morning, it only took RK a few hours to catch up and pass NLS. By Thursday their advantage was almost 3-2 over NLS, and by Friday when I got back in town it was almost 2-1.  Even when I started posting again that traffic advantage for RK lasted through Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of this week with a slow trend back towards even.  It wasn't until Wednesday of this week for NLS to flip back to #1.  Things on a macro level like overall traffic just don't turn around in hours, it takes days or weeks to regain traffic from not posting for a couple of days.

Only two other blogs that use Sitemeter saw large traffic surges.  Bacon's Rebellion, one of Virginia's most established blogs that focuses on policy saw a lot of additional traffic turning to them for news.  Also the BYP (Bored Young Professionals) blog which had strong connections to Tech was linked by Michelle Malkin and saw a huge traffic surge.

Where were people not turning?  Both blogs with younger writers, 750 Volts and Virginia Progressive saw their traffic drop.  The only other blog to drop in traffic was Bearing Drift which I can not explain- but the drop was pretty clear.

It will be interesting to see if any of the blogs that had traffic changes this week see a long term impact- up or down.

Comments

[cvllelaw]

Democratic Central (which uses Sitemeter) had been averaging about 140 hits a day. Then we posted something that linked to Cho's writings, and we got over 1,200 hits that day -- most of them from Google searches. (It seems that the difference was that our diary was called "Seung Cho's writings", and if anyone did a Google search for "Cho's writings", as opposed to "Cho's writing", or "Cho writings", they would get us as one of their top choices.) So our average that week was over 400 hits a day. We now we seem to have settled back to about 175 to 200 a day.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Sorry I missed you for this. Won't happen again.

[doug]

So this shows blogs can be as icky about raitings as MSM. Neat!

I really appreciated having this place to come to for community- that was the most help for me and some friends. RK was not so good at that and I bet has seen a significant drop off since- Lowell started making excuses for the killer which completely turned me off, just like that idiot Riley. But NLS, along with the posters here like Ghost were very much appreciated and helpful to get through the week.

As for Democratic Central posting writings and getting big ratings- um, ick. Good for you- I've never read your blog and now never will. Poor taste and poor judgement know no political boundaries.

Thanks for your blog Ben.

I'm so glad your blog could prosper from those tragic events.

[republitarian]

Hey, I use Google Analytics...

I only got 359 visitors yesterday.

[cvllelaw]

First, I didn't post the writings. I made a reference to the writings, and suggested that the writings showed a real sick person.

Second, I didn't do so with the intent of getting "ratings." I had no idea how the thing worked. I still don't. If I did, I would have posted something else that was going to get "ratings." Which clearly -- as the numbers show -- I haven't done.

Third, I am not bragging about getting the bounce -- I mentioned it just to show how capricious the site visits are. I don't regard a visit from a Googler as an indication that that person cares about what we are saying, or agrees with us, or in any way reflects favorably on us. It's just there.

[Lowell Feld]

Doug: You must have been reading a different blog than RK. In no way, shape or form did any of us ever make "excuses" for the killer. There is no justification for what he did, regardless of his past life experience. The only thing we tried to do was report what happened and to try and understand this horrible crime/tragedy.

[George Templeton]

I echo Doug's post. Your blog was where I went for news about this terrible event once I heard about it. You and many of the regular posters came up with vital info. And I want to thank you for it.

[Lowell Feld]

Doug: One more point - not only did we not make excuses for the murderer, we wouldn't even publish the scumbag's photograph. In fact, I will barely even say his name, because I don't believe he deserves one second of publicity. In contrast, we gave heroes like Liviu Librescu a great deal of laudatory coverage.

[Ward Smythe]

Ben,

FWIW, I pulled the Sitemeter script from my blog last week when I was trying to figure out what keeping the blog from loading. (turned out to be a WordPress glitch).

I'll probably put it back up this weekend, but it won't be accurate.

[doug]

Lowell- look in your blog history about your own post on how the killer was bullied. I think you chose not to recall that here? Days after the shooting you posted about how bad it was that he was bullied in high school.

And cvllelaw- I apologize. Still haven't read yours and probably won't. Your post sounded distasteful, but I see now it wasn't.

[Jason]

Sitemeter's unreliable. J's Notes uses it and averages 136 hits a day, mainly Google searches.

Google Analytics is the way to go: google.com/analytics

[Shaun Kenney]

Second that on Google Analytics. Great tool.

[blue south]

Would that be the post where Lowell said bullying wasnt an excuse and where he said that there were a ton of other people who are bullied and dont go shooting people?

Would it be that post? Cause thats a pretty clear indication he was trying to make some sense of the situation without making excuses.

[Lowell Feld]

Doug: It IS bad that he was bullied in High School. Are you saying it was good?!? And how on earth is that an "excuse" for the killer? There's tons of research on this subject; are all the researchers making "excuses" or are they simply looking for the causes so they can be headed off in the future? That was the ONLY point I was trying to make, but obviously you prefer to distort and slander.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Doug, I think you should rephrase the word "excuses". Lowell was just presenting a cause to what happened, I don't think excuses is a good word here because he did not excuse his behavior.

[doug]

Slander? My goodness you sound like Rowhey. So sue me. It sure looked to me like, a few days after the shooting, that you were looking for some item to blame society vs. this evil and sick person. Oh, yeah I can't use the word evil.

Ok, so lowell was looking for a "reason" not an "excuse", it was still too early. And, you know what, that's my opinion. Not yours. And opinions are like assh***s, everyone has one. Me pointing it out certainly got you very riled here, so why can't you say- "I posted something I wish I had waited on."?

But this site did no exploration of why this tragedy happened and who was to blame, and for that I am so very grateful. It was the only place I could stand to come and read anything.

[James Young]

I use SiteMeter, Ben, but only had three posts on the tragedy.

[Kenton]

I knocked my SiteMeter out of commission for a couple days while tinkering with my template, so my hits probably remained constant or actually went up a little. I noted a spike on Monday, but I was too speechless to write anything until Thursday anyway.

Google Analytics is the wave of the future.