Comments on: USAToday Says Traffic Way Up

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:29:15 +0000

I give usatoday credit for cleaning up their interface/design. Very clean and usable whereas other sites tend to be going in the other (wrong) direction (see: azcentral.com).

By: webonics

webonics — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:24:37 +0000

I put very little value into any word from Pluck about business operations after the way they’ve left thousands of users hanging due to their abortion of “Shadows” and not providing any tools to migrate to other platforms. I would never use another Pluck social media tool again despite having really liked Shadows until they disenfranchised their user base.

By: Clyde Smith

Clyde Smith — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:50:25 +0000

“This was issued way too fast to have been a response to my post, so the timing is coincidental.”

You think?

You guys are important but I get the sense that a reality check might be due.

By: sean

sean — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:03:29 +0000

Looks like a drop, then a pickup.

http://www.quantcast.com/usatoday.com

By: patricia

patricia — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:01:18 +0000

Traffic can be bought. How many returning visitors and how long were the session times? That’s what really matters… though I think it’s naive to expect all sites online to have massive traffic. It has never worked that way in media/television/etc. It won’t likely with the internet either. It’ll probably be a good year before people figure this out.

By: bmof

bmof — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 02:57:43 +0000

I work for a large publisher and we scrapped Comscore in favor of NNR about 6 months ago. Comscore numbers have been very inconsistent. Nielsen’s numbers track much closer to our internal metrics. And I’ve heard other metrics people say the same thing. In short, I take Comscore with a grain of salt, and Alexa/Compete with a pound of it.

By: iMarketingGuru (SEO/SEM Wiki)

iMarketingGuru (SEO/SEM Wiki) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:34:36 +0000

Many of these companies need to issue releases of case studies for I believe mind-maps illustrating these various business models would do well for many webmasters and internet gurus in the world. As for contests and entertainment content, these types of content areas always work for driving data. Has anyonel ooked at the Diggs of those pages? They are rather high for a news site. Exclusive content is also perfect, but only if the information is actually interesting to the reader.

Great job USA Today, but it won’t increase every month by 20%, that is far too much for any site, unless the site is the NYTimes…On a good note, this means that more people are moving online for the consumption of their news.

By: Goo Goo

Goo Goo — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:04:09 +0000

Anyone who uses Nielsen Netratings to make big advertising buy decisions needs help. Bad.

By: Hef

Hef — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:37:26 +0000

This statement makes sense in the context of explaining what went wrong in the reporting of a story; I wouldn’t think it would be something you strive for in future coverage. >

By: Roger

Roger — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:15:39 +0000

USA Today quotes Nielsen because that’s the gold standard and the third party service that advertisers make their buying decisions off of.

If they quoted their own stats, everybody would say you can’t trust internally generated numbers.

Gannett now has press releases out citing record traffic in March and record traffic in July. Social media tools were in place the entire time — kind of hard to point fingers at social media being responsible for any dips.

By: NexGen Technology Blog » USAToday’s Social Network Experiment May Not Be Paying Off

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:51:18 +0000

[...] USAToday issues a press release saying traffic is, actually, way [...]

By: Howard Owens

Howard Owens — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:06:08 +0000

I posted on my blog a month or two ago that USAToday.com traffic was tanking, according to compete.com. I know there are Gannett executives who read my blog … so they were already aware that people were watching their traffic. That’s certainly a spin they would want to debunk before too many more a-list blogs pick it up.

By: Goo Goo

Goo Goo — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:55:29 +0000

I “love” it when companies quote the service that makes them look the best — sometimes nielsen, other times compete.

if you do a press release, use actual data for your own site — not 3rd party estimates — unless you’re trying to make some wider market share point.

spin spin spin

By: Michael Arrington

Michael Arrington — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:38:58 +0000

Goo - I have no idea. Best we can do is look at all the data points, start pointing fingers and see what happens.

By: Goo Goo

Goo Goo — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:00:47 +0000

Michael -

USAToday has quoted Nielsen/NetRatings numbers, not actuals. Who is to say Nielsen is right, and either comscore or compete aren’t?

Don’t you agree?

By: Frankly

Frankly — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:56:24 +0000

ahh, actually….wait, forget it.

I know, “Traditional media doesn’t get it.”

Go team!

By: Michael Arrington

Michael Arrington — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:06:38 +0000

thanks Neil.

By: USAToday’s Social Network Experiment May Not Be Paying Off

USAToday’s Social Network Experiment May Not Be Paying Off — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:03:18 +0000

[...] USAToday issues a press release saying traffic is, actually, way [...]

By: Neil

Neil — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:02:58 +0000

Typo in the first paragraph: “going to wrong way” should be “going the wrong way” (I think)