We plotted the daily reach statistics of five popular science magazine websites to see how their traffic compares according to Alexa ratings, which are based on visits by people using the Alexa toolbar (but see this). ScienceBlogs' traffic ramped up almost as soon as it launched to match that of Scientific American and Science. It's interesting that Nature and New Scientist, which both happen to be UK-based science publications, have roughly twice the traffic of ScienceBlogs, Scientific American, and Science, which are all US-based magazines. Could it be that the UK has more science fans? Or do the UK science magazines enjoy a broader readership base in the US and UK, while American science magazines are shuned by half of the English-speaking world?
For some additional perspective, we plotted Nature against other popular websites. Gawker.com, the New York-centric media and celebrity blog, just beats out or matches Nature's traffic on a regular basis. Next up is National Geographic, which itself is beat by Boingboing, a group blog that covers science, tech, and web oddities. Engadget, the popular tech blog bought by AOL from founder Jason Calacanis in late 2005, beats them all.
Comments (3)
On a somewhat related subject, I've always been intrigued by the nature of science stories that show up on a site like Digg. I must say I am unimpressed. Some of the general science articles are not bed, but a lot of the stories are not what I would consider science. I think Engadget and Boing Boing do an even better job of presenting good general science to the populace. Given Nature and Science's more domain heavy articles, I am quite surprised at the popularity. I think your guess that Nature has a broader readership on either side of the Atlantic is a good one
Posted by Deepak | January 31, 2007 3:20 AM
Posted on January 31, 2007 03:20
I think you're comparing apples and oranges here. Comparing Science and Nature makes sense since access to both is restricted to people with paid subscriptons.
Comparing blogs, which are free, to sites that require paid access (Science and Nature) isn't a valid comparison.
Posted by Sandra Porter | February 18, 2007 2:12 PM
Posted on February 18, 2007 14:12
ScienceBlogs is free, yet it has lower traffic than Nature or New Scientist, so I don't think the paid-content issue is really what is keeping people away.
Engadget and BoingBoing content appeal to a broader audience, though they lean toward the science geek side, which is why I included those. Gawker is an interesting comparison (to me) because it covers a fairly small niche (Manhattan media and celebrity gossip), yet apparently that niche attracts an audience at least as large as Nature's. An interesting point to observe is how well these three, young blog sites are doing compared to long-established science media companies.
Of course, I hesitate to interpret these graphs too far because of inherent problems in the data collection, which is based on tracking Alexa toolbar users. But the data are intriguing nonetheless.
Posted by Jackie | February 19, 2007 3:43 AM
Posted on February 19, 2007 03:43