Author Archives: Attiq Sadiq

Paywall results in for Newsday as US newspapers see dip in traffic

Some interesting takeaways from new traffic stats for US newspapers released by Nielsen this week and reported by Editor & Publisher.

Unique users to the Newsday website, which went behind a paywall in late October, decreased by 2.2 million in October 2009 to 1.7 million in November.

Elsewhere 16 of the top 30 newspapers in the figures posted a year-on-year drop in unique users – in part a result of the bumper traffic created by the presidential race in November 2008.

Unique users to the New York Times, USA Today and LA Times websites fell by more than 20 per cent year-on-year, according to the November stats. But the New York Times did record the highest number of unique users for the month at 16,635,000.

But the biggest winner by far in November was Tampa Bay Online, which saw a gigantic 354 per cent jump in unique users to 1,724,000.

Related reading: More on the average time spent on US newspaper websites in November

Mixed fortunes for top US newspapers in November traffic figures

1 Reply

Mixed results for US newspaper websites a year on from the traffic surge generated by the US presidential race, according to Nielsen Online figures reported by Editor & Publisher.

The stats suggest that readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution spent 12 minutes more on its site in November 2009 when compared with the same period last year.

Half of the top 30 websites recorded a year-on-year increase in average user time spent on site, with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution posting the highest average time for the month at 23 minutes and 38 seconds.

But the New York Times’ website recorded the biggest year-on-year decrease in average time spent on the site by users. The figures suggest a drop of more than 19 minutes in the past year to a time of 17 minutes 17 seconds for November 2009.

Related reading on Journalism.co.uk: See the UK’s national newspaper websites’ traffic report for November from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe)

Condé Nast launches monthly GQ iPhone app

Following in the footsteps of the Guardian, GQ’s magazine has announced its first monthly application for the iPhone.

According to a report from paidContent.org, the US version of the app, which offers an exact replica of the magazine, has been approved by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), which means purchases of the app will count towards the magazine’s circulation figure.

Unlike the Guardian, where a one-off fee is paid for unlimited access to content, in the UK GQ is charging £1.79 for each edition.

Publisher of GQ, Conde Nast, is also reportedly planning more iPhone apps for its other magazine titles.