Today, one of my favorite bloggers,
Ethan Zuckerman (of
Global Voices),
explores an intriguing way to gauge the popularity and audience of online newspaper venues: link per thousand circulation (LkpC). Here's how you calculate this metric:
- Search Technorati to determine the number of links that include the paper's URL. For example, I just did a Technorati search for links to the Indianapolis Star site (search string: http://indystar.com). The result: 1305 links from 942 sources.
- Get the paper's peak daily circulation from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. (Figures for the 100 largest U.S. papers are online.) For the Star, estimated daily circulation is: 358,261.
- Divide the circulation estimate by 1,000. For the Star, that yields 358.261.
- To calculate LkpC, divide the numbers of inbound links (step 1) by 1/1000 of the daily circulation (step 3). For the Star, this means 1,305 / 358.261 = 3.64
Zuckerman calculated a LkpC of 134.9 for the
Christian Science Monitor. He noted, "That's more than double its nearest competitor, the
New York Times, with a score of 63.08." For context, according to Zuckerman the six next "bloggiest" papers are:
Washington Post (58.44),
San Francisco Chronicle (38.32),
Boston Globe (29.80),
Seattle Post Intelligencer (18.56),
New York Post (12.48),
Los Angeles Times (11.21).
This method definitely needs some refinement. For instance, Technorati would yield different inbound-link figures than, say,
BlogPulse or
PubSub. However, I think LkpC or something similar could be a useful gauge for media companies and analysts. Why? As the blogosphere continues to ascend in the public consciousness, inbound links from blogs likely will account for an increasingly greater share of newspapers' online audiences. This could influence everything from content to feed offerings to ad strategies.
Zuckerman also offers a list of the "least bloggy" newspapers. Tellingly, the
Wall Street Journal is among these laggards, with a puny LkpC of just 0.40. Says Zuckerman, "The
Journal is notorious in the blogging community for hiding nearly all of its content behind a paid firewall. Despite the fact that it boasts the second-highest circulation of a U.S. paper (2,106,774), it's anemic in the blogosphere, with 910 links from 828 sources." My opinion: In the emerging and evolving media landscape, such performance might one day become a liability in the online media business.
