The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Dear John Hawkins …

Posted on | July 22, 2011 | 20 Comments

. . . twice now I’ve meant to respond to your recent contributions to the “Death of Blogging” meme:

Unfortunately, for some strange reason, every time I start working on a response, a big story breaks and I have to drop my meta-blogging essay to go update the breaking news.

Today, it was the Oslo bombing attack. Traffic in the 3 p.m. hour was over 600 visits and, as of 4 p.m., about 25% of our traffic was coming specifically for the Oslo story, while another 15% or so was coming for our coverage of the Courtney Stodden saga. More than half the traffic was just regular readers checking in at the main page.

You can see from the SiteMeter monthly numbers that our traffic trend has been up, up, up in the past year, and with a little luck — and a few more ‘Lanches — it’s entirely possible we’ll finish July with more than 300,000 visits. Not Drudge-like numbers, but nothing to sneeze at, and the upward trend here rather countervails the notion that the blogospheric future is doom and gloom.

My recent cri de coueur was motivated not by any problems traffic-wise, but rather (a) evidence of failures in terms of getting the job done, and (b) the damnable and eternal problem of monetization.

So the money’s short, and it sometimes seems as if my work isn’t having the kind of impact I would desire. I’m not sure how that fits with what you are trying to say, but I don’t have time to discuss it now, because I’ve got to get back to updating the Oslo bombing story. “Aggregating like a mofo,” you see.

As to what to do about the problems of the “independent conservative blogosphere,” I don’t know.

What can be done for me? Hit the freaking tip jar!





Category: Blogging

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