Patrick Ruffini, who was the Bush-Cheney webmaster is 2004, is the latest conservative to weigh in on my piece from last Sunday, Aristocratic Right Wing Blogosphere Stagnating. Ruffini's two-fold response is pretty much the same as the others. First, he claims that the rising traffic of the liberal blogosphere is not a problem, and then he goes on to argue against my characterization of the right-wing blogger community while taking mock offense.
Even though numbers of blogs were fairly balanced, conservative blogs showed a greater tendency to link to other blogs (84% linked to other blogs, 82% received a link) compared to liberal blogs (74% linked to other blogs, 67% received a link).
Bowers trashes the consrvative blogosphere as "aristocratic" and "anti-meritocratic." But if anything, the tables are now turned. Ironically, it is the liberal blogosphere that has adopted the more corporate, top-down approach to blogging: to be heard, you must go to Kos, Atrios, and Josh Marshall.(...)
Conservative blogs may be smaller, but they are more densely interconnected. Conversation on conservative blogs is just as likely to happen between blogs as within them. In fact, I've noticed a unique phenomenon emerging right here: quite often, my number of trackbacks rivals, and sometimes exceeds, the number of comments. In terms of solid, valuable interaction, trackbacks are pure gold: they tell you that someone thought enough of your post not just to respond to it on a seldom-read comments page or diary, but to give it prime real estate in their personal space, all the while sending visitors your way.
More to the point, however, I do not think this even matters. My post was based on traffic stats that I check on a semi-regular basis. I know for certain that the audience of the left-wing blogosphere is growing at a faster rate than the audience of the right-wing blogosphere. I do not know for certain why the left-wing blogosphere is growing faster--the difference between the communities was merely a hypothesis. Since that time, commenters on the left and the right have rightly argued that I do not have enough data to prove if the community sites are in fact the main engine of left-wing growth, and that the anti-comment sites on the right are the ones that are stagnating. I do intend to look into that, however.
I do not know for certain the cause of the relatively greater growth of the left-wing blogosphere, but I do know that it is happening. The audience of the left-wing blogosphere is already larger, is growing faster, and is more politically engaged in the right-wing blogosphere. In no particular order, here are some points relating to these topics.
Size
In my latest survey, I found that among the top two-hundred political blogs, those that can be categorized as "left-leaning" receive around four million page views per week more than those that can be catergorized as "right-leaning." Rufinni argues that "if you put Blogads on Free Republic, which played the crucial role in opening up Rathergate, the traffic equation would look quite different." Of course it would, but it would also change if you put Blogads up on Democratic Underground as well. If one were to compare the page views of the two sites, which is the same measurement Blogads uses, than Free Republic, while larger, certainly does not receive anywhere near four million more page views a week than Democratic Underground. It is also interesting to note in that link that traffic on Free Republican is about one-third of what it was two years ago.
In terms of traffic, Dailykos and Glenn Reynolds are no longer comparable
In both the article and the comments below it, Ruffini and others compare Dailykos to Glenn Reynolds. While it is true that both sites are the highest trafficked on their respective sides of the political blogosphere, consistent comparisons of the two sites can often seve to mute the growing chasm between the two. Sometime I wonder if conservatives are really aware of just how large Dailykos has become.
In July of 2003, Instapundit had three times the traffic of Dailykos. Now, Dailykos has four times the traffic of Instapundit. In fact, Dailykos, has more traffic (3,002,558 page views per week) than Glenn Reynolds, Little Green Footballs, Powerline, Michelle Malkin, Andrew Sullivan and Hugh Hewitt combined (2,965,460 page views per week). There is simply no blog comparable to Dailykos on the conservative side of the blogosphere.
New Stars Rising
Rufinni consistently talks about Dailykos, Atrios, and Josh Marshall as the end-all be all of liberal blogging. Coudld he be any more behind the times? The long-standing superstars of the right wing blogosphere might think of Dailykos, Atrios, Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum as their equals, but it is particularly interesting to compare several new Democratic blogs to the established right-wing stars:
Total number of blogs
It is also interesting to note that among the seventy-four most trafficked blogs, thirty-seven are liberal and thirty-seven are conservative. It is only among blogs 75 and up that the conservative advantage in total number of blogs begins to kick in. Further, from blogs ranked 165 and above, there are equal numbers of liberal and conservative blogs. The conservative advantage in total number of blogs exists entirely within the 75-165 range. That might be useful for growth later on, but right now it is not clear that it offers any advantage whatsoever.
Traffic sharing
If conservatives share more traffic than liberal sites, as Ruffini argues, wouldn't that actually make the comparative size of the liberal blogosphere even larger than my estimation?
Democratic Blog Readers are More Politically Engaged Than Republican Blog Readers
In an attempt to make the issue of blogosphere size and growth not seem important, Ruffini suggests that the traffic on right-wing blogs is superior, and that the growth on left-wing sites is coming from dubious sources:
The study also includes sites like SmirkingChimp and MeFi, not exactly a hopping joint for influentials and opinion makers.
* * *
Anyway, I got stuff to do before the show tonight. I'll have more on this tomorrow.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 15 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.
