Ooh, that killer HuffPo
BusinessInsider.com had the following headline: How the Huffington Post’s traffic is killing rival news sites
It’s a quick-and-dirty post based on an analysis by Ken Doctor, who headlined his post Happy Birthday HuffPo (Hint: Give money)
The Huffington Post ‘s birthday isn’t until May 9.
Doctor salutes the tabloid for its explosive growth, but notes that its revenue per unique user lags. The HuffPo gets about 16 cents US per unique compared to US$1 per unique for the NYT.
That’s the strength of being a company that has long sold advertising, owns key agency relationships and does print/online bundling. Still: a dollar per unique compared to 12 cents a unique. As in all things web, we could say, HuffPo is being underpaid or we can say the Times is being overpaid. Whatever, that’s a delta worth knowing and exploring.
I’d say both are being paid appropriately. The HuffPo deserves credit for its innovative thinking. But some of its extreme downmarket content, posted in a desperate effort to grab eyeballs, leaves me cold.
I never think of the NYT’s content as cheap and dirty. Premium content should lead to a premium audience, which should in turn mean the ability to charge premium ad rates.