Hitwise: NyTimes still way ahead of Digg

40 Comments

by Marshall Kirkpatrick on July 6, 2006

Hitwise came out with some new data today indicating that previous speculation that Digg could soon pass the NYTimes in online traffic is not supported by more definitive data. LeeAnn Prescot writes on the Hitwise blog “According to the Hitwise US sample of 10 million internet users, Digg ranked at #101 in the News & Media category in for the week ending July 1, 2006. The share of page impressions for the NY Times was 19 times greater than for Digg for that week. ” See our post on Digg v3’s launch, where we argued (based on Alexa numbers) that Digg could soon challenge the Times on page views and our TalkCrunch interview with the Digg founders.

Comments

Sidhartha Tripathy - July 6th, 2006 at 5:42 pm PDT

do not over estimate and exageratte digg.com
it will fall like most other sites..
yahoo google msn/live are the sites to stay.
digg will disapear soon…do not confuse readers and over publisize digg.

sid

xxdesmus - July 6th, 2006 at 6:01 pm PDT

Well Sid, the exact same can be said about Slashdot and our beloved Tech Crunch too then … face the facts, Digg ain’t go anywhere anytime soon.

Harry - July 6th, 2006 at 6:31 pm PDT

Say whatever you want but Digg has changed. A bad change but, you don’t find good stories as often as before.

However like what xxdesmus has said:

“…face the facts”

Digg ain’t going nowhere for now because the idea works. It will stay for quite a while i believe.

DTB - July 6th, 2006 at 6:32 pm PDT

Please…. Please…. Stop using Alexa to compare sites.

Just don’t do it. Alexa rankings have no substantial weight and/or merit.

So please refrain from doing so.

Search Engine WEB - July 6th, 2006 at 8:17 pm PDT

ALEXA’s Toolbar users are mostly Software, hi tech, SEO geeks

There are the most likely to frequent Digg than NYTimes

NYTimes users are LESS likely to have downloaded the toolbar

and as a whole are less likely to be Tech people – but more political, academic, current social events mixture.

It was only Recently that any on tech stories could even survive on Digg – now maybe their overall ratings will grow.

Alex Rudloff - July 6th, 2006 at 8:26 pm PDT

Not only is Alexa grossly inaccurate, it’s not even a valid comparrison.

Without NYTimes, there would be no Digg. Digg is agreggate and links to journalism. NYTimes is journalism.

This just in — there are still more phones than phone books.

met - July 6th, 2006 at 8:44 pm PDT

Sex.com might have more trafic than nasa.gov.

One institution cannot be substituted for the other.

Their uses/effect/advantages on society cannot be judged by the above statistic.

Visitor satisfaction could be higher at nasa.gov than sex.com.

———————————————————————————————–

Digg popularity is based on its traffic. More traffic could make it a great website because of its social nature. It could also make it a bad site due to huge traffic – creating more noise.
NYtimes content is not particularly affected by traffic.

Nick Pang | Wii Preorder - July 6th, 2006 at 8:47 pm PDT

apples and oranges comparison. NYTimes is content, Digg is ranking. analogy is movie reviews, consumer reports ratings, etc.

Serge Lescouarnec - July 6th, 2006 at 9:20 pm PDT

I recently started commenting on New York Times blogs and it has driven a steady amount of readers to both my blog ‘Serge the Concierge’ and my website ‘New Jersey Concierges’.
I stay on topic. My last comment on Wednesday was on Frank Bruni’s Diner Journal.

I have posted on the ‘new Digg’ but it had nowhere near the impact that a few lines on the Times blogs had.

My personal impressions.

Serge
Biz:
http://www.njconcierges.com
Blog:
http://www.serg...heconcierge.com

Ian Clifton - July 6th, 2006 at 10:37 pm PDT

Haha, great quote Alex: “This just in — there are still more phones than phone books.”

The sites are definitely very different, so I don’t see any reason to compare them. NY Times is huge because it is intended for a large and general audience. Although Digg now applies to a lot of people, it’s still semi-techie and it based on users pointing to content, not the writing of that content. Besides, I don’t think NY Times has “online web games” …unless you count the crossword.

Apples and oranges, definitely. They both have your daily Vitamin C needs, so take your pick

Otis - July 6th, 2006 at 10:39 pm PDT

Here are some interesting and relevant charts:
NY Times: http://ehlist.ca/show/109 – ~90M pages in Google
Digg: http://ehlist.ca/show/3418 – ~ 10M pages in Google

What will Hitwise say when the two numbers start matching?

Kal - July 7th, 2006 at 12:20 am PDT

Regarding Alexa: Yes, Alexa is clearly a GPR- Geek Popularity Ranking. Think about it. Who other than a geek….
1. Has heard of Alexa.
2. Has the time, interest and initiative to go to Alexa.com and then install the Alexa Toolbar.
I do not know one single non-Geek who has even HEARD of Alexa, much less installed the toolbar.

Aer Ukkiding - July 7th, 2006 at 6:41 am PDT

Whoever began comparing Digg and NYT made several fatal errors:

1. Digg is NOT a news site. Digg points users to other external sites containing news.
2. The NYT gets thousands (if not millions) of hits from Digg.
3. Comparing hits is a shell game.
4. Rabid Digg fans will now flood the Internet just to prove this “fact” wrong–don’t you guys get the fanboy culture yet.

I don’t turn to digg to get my news, I turn to digg to help me find my news (and even then it’s NOT my sole source). There is a difference. In fact, while I do read an occasional story in the NYT, they have no mechanism to point me to other sources–that’s not their model.

Comparing apples and oranges can often make for some heated arguments, but usually just ends up producing fruit salad.

Ryan - July 7th, 2006 at 7:00 am PDT

Digg ranks highly on Alexa because their users love to push stories about Alexa to the front page, which causes more of their users to download Alexa, increases the ranking and the cycle continues.

Personally, the so called category expansion at Digg doesn’t really seem to have changed much. Most of the popular stories in the other nontech categories seem to be the types of things that would have been submitted and dugg under the old sorting system. Until the audience changes, the content will remain pretty much the same. I’ll also add the obligatory note that the commenting system still sucks and the comment rating still promotes a fanboy hegemony.

Darren McLaughlin - July 7th, 2006 at 7:07 am PDT

I agree with DTB. Alexa is not a source worth quoting. I was able to make a sub-10,000 Alexa score by running the bar myself on a website with virtually no traffic.

All kidding aside, I’d love to see a nationwide poll performed and see how much name brand recognition Digg has in mainstream America. I’m betting the NYT would come out way ahead.

Ma_rio - July 7th, 2006 at 7:47 am PDT

Remains a realistic prediction.
The NYT doesn’t show any growth. Digg is still fueled by network effects.

Daniele Levy - July 7th, 2006 at 8:45 am PDT

I agree with Ryan that Digg will remain a great, but niche, destination until the audience starts to expand. It’s a bit of a catch 22 since the content there today appeals to a certain audience that reads that type of content that appeals to that audience, etc, etc. My take is that they will need to go out with a broader PR or marketing campaign to get more diversified in their audience, content, and hence reach.

Per Esmann Jensen - July 7th, 2006 at 12:40 pm PDT

It’s the same over and over again: Web 2.0 sites get all the attention in the web community, but in that other community called “ordinary society” old school sites are still dominant in a very big way.

Sidhartha Tripathy - July 7th, 2006 at 4:04 pm PDT

thats true…and digg is nearing its peak…soon it will sub merge in the ocean of yahoo google and live….take my words…

Webmetricsguru - July 7th, 2006 at 7:15 pm PDT

I have written extensively on Digg vs. The New York Times and predict that Digg will overtake the New York Times in pure pageviews by Summer’s end but the audiences are different -and Hitwise confirmes this – but so does many of the free sources that I cite in my blog posts.

http://www.webm..._30_previe.html

adam - July 8th, 2006 at 8:04 am PDT

I am not sure why that graph was used. Unless I can’t read this graph, it shows NYtimes is declining and Digg is going to keep growing. So why the article?