A link to aid (if somewhat modestly) Guido in his quest to be more read than the ‘commentariat’s mediasaurs’. He writes:
“April saw a total of over 3.6m pageviews from 1,382,879 visits by 347,994 visitors making 2,995,765 pageviews plus 680,207 views via RSS feed readers. Not bad for one guy with a laptop, Blackberry and a penchant for Guinness. With traffic averaging over 100,000 pageviews daily this blog puts traditional political publications like the New Statesman in the shade…”
He also makes a surprising claim with this statement: “Many thanks to you the readers and the advertisers who make this blog more profitable than both the Guardian and Independent combined.”
Update 1: An email has arrived from Guido. We asked him to elaborate on his profitability. He had this to say:
“They both lose money. We make money. Secret is to sell adverts.”
Update 2: Journalism.co.uk asked for a little bit more detail about how much money he makes, and how the advertising breaks down. Would he care to share that information?
“No I would not I am afraid. Will tell you this, the website costs circa £200 a month to run.”
I suspect he’s also more profitable than Ford, Chrysler and the US government. But so is my blog, and I don’t have any ads whatsoever. What’s his point? You got me.
Paul Staines in misleading spin shock.
:o)
Last I heard from one of their shareholders*, while MessageSpace was paying publishers, it wasn’t making any money for them.
(*This was a year ago now, but Staines was peddling the ‘more profit than’ line long before this.)
Any heavily-spun profit Staines is talking about was and is more likely to be about what he’s earning as a publisher or, by his own account, by selling stories to newspapers.
You may recall that Staines was equally misleading about his traffic figures that – with the assistance of the MSM channels he claims to out-perform – finally/temporarily risen almost but not quite to the level of his earlier fantasies.
(This time last year, Staines was claiming 350,000 unique visitors a month, when in reality it was closer to 75,000)
Tim – do you have a link to the source which suggests it was nearer 75,000 than 350,000?
I certainly do:
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2008/04/this_is_spinal.asp
I fear things may have taken a sudden turn for the worse at MessageSpace. I called them for comment on this and another matter, and at first I got an answering machine (in the middle of a weekday afternoon), then some distinctly unprofessional and ill-mannered chap who would only give his name as ‘Nick’ answered; he initially refused to even take a message, but did pause long enough to ask me what I was wearing and make an improper proposition.
(Seriously. I have a recording of the entire exchange if MessageSpace wish to contest my account. If they wish to contest my account while refusing to allow me to publish that recording, then I wish them all the luck in the world.)
Tim, can you not take a hint? Please stop calling us every few seconds.
Out of curiosity, what were you wearing?
I think I’d like confirmation that this is an authentic response from a respresentative of MessageSpace before I respond to it.
I wouldn’t want to go off half-cocked in a Sunday newspaper or anything like that.
(waits)
Having called MessageSpace again, I am now satisfied that the above comment from ‘Team MessageSpace’ is authentic.
Well, if they’re that comfortable with my revelation about their unprofessional conduct, they’ll have no objections with my publishing the recording of the event.
Unless their CIO Jag Singh would care to state otherwise.
(Jag… if you’re out there and finally back from your two-day lunch, then now’s the time to speak up.)
I also have Alex Hilton, one of their shareholders, on record confirming that I’m free to discuss anything we have discussed by email to do with shareholders and who may or may not be making a profit just yet.
So here goes:
[Note – I acknowledge that this shareholder might be prone to confusion. At one stage he was clearly under the impression that he had allowed himself to be partially bought out by Paul Staines, who MessageSpace have reminded us in the past “is neither a shareholder, director or employee of MessageSpace and never has been.” This shareholder is also trying very hard to stay away from the day-to-day business and get out of the picture and so on and so forth, but we are talking profits to shareholders here, so if there are profits going to shareholders, he’s in a position to know about it, what with being a shareholder and all.]
ANYway… what he told me in February 2008 was that MessageSpace was paying out to publishers, but not making any money for shareholders… which is more or less what I said above, but now with a named source.
Obviously, that was over a year ago and something may have changed since then, but Alex Hilton did not volunteer any information about the profit status at present when giving me permission to quote him on his earlier statement
I tried to have a sensible conversation with someone at MessageSpace again today, but reached the same person as yesterday, who refused to take the matter seriously. Jag Singh could not be reached for comment, and appears to have been ‘out to lunch’ for most of the day of not all day.
To repeat; any profit Staines is talking about was and is more likely to be about what he’s earning as a publisher or, by his own account, by selling stories to newspapers.
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The point is, you petulant child, the Guardian and Independent both are losing money; where as he Guido Fawkes in fact makes money. Its not rocket science. What I’m sure really rankles with you is the real journalistic integrity this man has; so please carry on whining like little children that way you never have to face up to any facts.
Journalistic integrity? Paul Staines relies heavily on spin, conflation, implication and anonymous abuse. Staines also burns sources when it suits him.
And the only substantial sums going into is pocket come from the newspapers he belittles.