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Audience By the Project for Excellence in Journalism Introduction The Web in 2008 became a regular and even primary news destination for more and more Americans. Several surveys found that the number of Americans who used the Web regularly for news jumped. And at least for some news the Internet has now overtaken most other media as a favored news delivery platform. One poll, in December 2008, found the number of Americans who said they got “most of their national and international news” online increased 67% in the last four years.1 The presidential election was almost certainly a key factor in the growth. More than a third of Americans said they got most of their campaign news from the Internet in 2008 — triple the percentage in previous presidential election year.2 The growth in online news consumption cut across age groups, but the growth was fueled in particular by young people. Young voters and activists now rank the Internet as a news source of importance parallel to television.3 And the shift was likely not just a matter of changing audience tastes. News organizations and the political community both were also more aggressive about delivering news and information online, and giving consumers more ways to gather, organize and share it across multiple devices. From personalized news pages sent to a person’s e-mail, delivery of content on “smart” mobile phones, news-ranking sites that list the most-recommended news stories and more sharing of content among news producers, what was available from the traditional news media digitally was richer, even if much of this was the same information simply made more readily available. Add to that social networking sites like Facebook. And the video site YouTube also became a major delivery system for people to get news posted and recommended by friends and associates, and often from political campaigns. The Obama camp reported more than a billion minutes of campaign-produced material was downloaded from YouTube. And Youtube reported that the Obama campaign’s 1800 web videos were viewed 100 million times in total.4
By any number of yardsticks, the traffic to news websites jumped in 2008. Comparing one media platform to another can be complicated, given the different ways different media are measured. Often the clearest reference is found in survey data. The new numbers put the Web ahead of several other platforms for the first time. In the same August survey, 29% of Americans said they “regularly” watched network nightly news, 22% watched network morning shows and 13% Sunday morning shows. The percentage of Americans who relied on the Internet regularly, according to this data, was now roughly similar to that who regularly watched cable television for news (39%). More people still read a newspaper “yesterday” (34%) or listened to news radio (35%) than had viewed news online “yesterday” (29%). But the gap was narrowing.6 Other surveys reinforced the notion of a jump in online news consumption. In November 2008, for instance, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found 36% of Internet users said they now used the Web for news on a “typical day,” a 16% jump from two years earlier (December 2006) when the number was 31%. The numbers, it is important to note, refer to the platform by which people acquired their news, not the source gathering it. Virtually all of the most popular news websites are those associated with traditional news organizations, whose legacy platforms are paying for the news gathering, or are aggregators, which collect content from traditional newsrooms and wire services rather than produce their own. But given the financial implications of the Web on the news business, the numbers are no less significant. This growth in online news consumption was not due to more people using the Internet generally. The percent of people who go online for any reason has held fairly steady at 70% to 75% of the U.S. population since 2006. But those who go online do it more often and for longer periods of time than in the past, and they increasingly seek news. Since 2004, for instance, the percentage of online Americans saying they went online “yesterday” increased from 58% to 72%. And the number logging on multiple times a day from home jumped from 27% to 34%.8 Another study found that over the last three years, the amount of time the average user spent online increased from 14 hours a week in 2006 to over 17 hours as of January 2009.9 Consider that that in January 2009, the Digital Future Report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School found that 79% of adult users said the Internet was now their “most important” source of information (not just for news), higher than television (68%) or newspapers (60%). Getting news online, in other words, has become more of a reflex and a larger part of people’s daily lives.10 For all this, one other factor has remained constant in Internet news trends: the people who go online for their news tend to be more educated. That has not changed over the last decade even as the number of online news users has grown. Ten years ago a college graduate was more than three times as likely as someone with a high school education or less to regularly go online for news. That gap remains just as large today. Fully 61% of college graduates go online for news at least three days a week, compared with just 19% of those with no more than a high school education.11 Beyond demographics, the accelerating move by audiences generally to the Web just deepens the paradox facing the news business. As their audience migrates online, and the old media continue to build their offerings there to service them, the media are properly developing their market share in the new media environment. The more success legacy news operations have online, however, the more damaging it is to their current revenue base, since the Internet increasingly cannot pay for itself from any of the current economic models (see Online Economics). Internet Audiences and the Election Almost certainly a major reason for the surge in online news consumption in 2008 was interest in the election. While television remained the dominant delivery source, the percent of Americans who said they got most of their campaign news from the Internet tripled between October 2004 and October 2008. Fully a third (33%) reported getting most of their election news online, up from the 10% who did so four years earlier.12 By the last week of the election, 59% of voters said they had sought out or encountered at least some political information online.13 Young people were a major factor in that growth. Nearly three times as many people ages 18 to 29 cited the Internet (49%) as their main campaign news platform as mentioned newspapers (17%).14 Among those over age 50, nearly the opposite was true: 22% relied on the Internet for election news while 39% look to newspapers. Even with that, compared with 2004, use of the Internet for election news has increased across all age groups. Among the youngest cohort (age 18-29), television has lost significant ground to the Internet.15
Which news sites were enjoying this boost in traffic? The evidence suggests growth across a range. To some extent, the biggest Web sites got even bigger. The top four news sites alone, for example, increased their audience by 22% in 2008, according to data from comScore, or a combined 23.6 million visitors a month. That rate of increase is more than twice as fast as in 2007 and more than five times the rate in 2006. At Yahoo News, the most-visited news site according to comScore, the number of visitors rose by 13% for the year. The number rose 24% at No. 2 MSNBC.com, 34% at No. 3 CNN.Com, and 20% at No. 4 AOL News. (Tracking the exact order of which of these sites is first, second or third is complicated by the fact that the different measuring agencies use different methodologies, but all show substantial growth). The traffic data also suggest that a host of niche sites that barely registered or did not exist during the previous presidential election also benefited. Huffingtonpost.com, a news aggregator, producer and blogging website, for example, catapulted into the 20 most-visited sites in September 2008, according to data from comScore, with 4.5 million users during the month, an increase of 474% compared with September 2007.16 Politico.com, which started in 2007 (see New Ventures Section) with a focus on national politics, increased fivefold to 2.4 million visitors between September 2007 and 2008. RealClearPolitics.com, which aggregates political news and polling, grew 489% during that period.17
But even with those gains, traffic to those sites remained a fraction of what the leading news sites drew. As a group, HuffingtonPost.com, RealClearPolitics.com and Politico.com drew an average of 3.9 million more visitors per month in 2008 than in 2007. To put that into perspective, Yahoo News.com gained 4.5 million by itself. The evidence clearly suggests that while a variety of new sites grew, in general, the big got even bigger, extending their share of Internet traffic. After the election, some of these niche sites were more successful than others at retaining those audiences. In December, the Huffington Post still drew 81% of the viewers it did in September and October, when interest in the campaign was highest. Salon.com, the left-leaning online magazine, retained 77%. Two newer sites, however, did not do as well. Politico’s website kept just about half its audience. And the Real Clear Politics website, which had grown in advance of the election, kept only 21%.18
Not only were more people getting their news from the Internet in 2008, but they also were doing it in new and different ways, much of it enabled by news organizations developing more ways of disseminating their content. Mobile viewing, the sharing of stories on social networks and video sites, and posts on a multitude of microblogs became more widespread in 2008 while earlier tools like also e-mail and RSS remained popular. By compiling, sharing and customizing the news they consume, people in a sense are becoming not only their own editors, but also critical agents in the trajectory of a news story. Mobile News The technology that got some of the greatest attention in 2008 was mobile phone communication. Purchases of iPhones, BlackBerries and other smartphones grew rapidly in 2008. In the first quarter of the year alone, smartphone sales totaled 7.3 million units, a 106.2 percent increase from the same period in 2007.21 And news outlets began more aggressively to take advantage of this digital platform to deliver instantly updated text, audio and images. The Pew Internet & American Life Project found in March 2008 that 62% of all American adults had used the Internet through a wireless connection: 58% had used their cellphone or personal digital assistant for things other than talking; and 41% had logged onto the Internet away from home or office with a handheld devices or laptop computer. Many, of course, had made such connections both ways.22 By the end of the year, according to Nielsen Mobile, there were about 40 million active users of the mobile Web.23 That amounts to one-fourth the universe of the 160 million adult using the Internet on computers. With that large and growing usage, mobile phones seem destined to become a major mode of information delivery. Two challenges face news companies as a consequence. First, they must compete with the dozens of other applications available for smartphones, such as navigational aids, music sites, games and video viewers. Second, they need to find a way to make money on a platform that may be even less suited than computers to display advertising. While the traffic numbers are there, and despite much talk of mobile advertising revenue, ads have as yet proved difficult to display in this platform and the question of how audiences would receive them remains unanswered. And if it is not going to be advertising, is there another revenue source for news from mobile? Like much of the digital revolution, that is unclear. Still, several major players have moved to accommodate the mobile technology. The New York Times and the Associated Press have invested heavily in delivery options for users of smart phones. Both are primarily focused on attracting mobile users to their content with the hope that a model for making money will follow. The New York Times began preparing its content for mobile phones in 2006. By July 2008, it had an active mobile Web page with downloadable tools, including an application for the Apple iPhone and Amazon’s Kindle, a digital reader that delivers print in a user-friendly and eye-friendly format. Mobile phone users can access the Mobile News Network by visiting its mobile site. The application provides continually updated news, photos and video. Mobile technology jumped forward in 2008 as Apple released its iPhone with 3G, and Blackberry followed with a 3G phone of its own. The 3G technology gives fast access to the Internet and e-mail over cellphone networks worldwide. The high-bandwidth network also makes it possible to more efficiently surf the Web, download e-mail, get directions and watch video. In October, Google released its open-source operating system, Android, which can be run on almost any mobile phone. It can essentially make any smartphone perform the same functions as an iPhone. It offers free wireless use and allows for easy addition of applications from anyone who takes the time to create one. Applications, or apps, are Web-based tools that allow users to do anything from streaming video to finding nearby restaurants. Apple had 1,700 applications for sale by late 2008, and its technology strictly limits where users can obtain applications. Google, by contrast, hopes its open-source approach, which allows anyone and everyone to develop applications, will eventually challenge the popularity of the iPhone. (Google has not publicly discussed its revenue model for Android. Reportedly, the company is going to incorporate its online advertising platforms within Android's applications.30) Social Networking A growing number of internet users also turned to social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to share information in 2008. These sites allow users to create profiles and swap messages, photos and links to other Web pages with a circle of friends. During 2008 alone, the number of people visiting social networking sites grew by 9% to 104 million.31 Fewer in number than the people using mobile phones, social networking appears to be especially popular among the young, African Americans and liberal Democrats.32 In August 2008, 30% of those with social networking profiles said they at least occasionally got local, national or international news through these sites.33 About a quarter said they share news on their network pages. Americans also turned in greater numbers in 2008 to “micro-blogs” like Twitter for breaking news. Twitter is a digital social networking service that allows its users to send and read other users’ messages — usually text messages of no more than 140 characters in length. Between December 2007 and December 2008, unique visitors to the site grew more than tenfold, to 2 million. That compared to 20% growth between December 2006 (soon after it launched in July 2006) and December 2007, according to comScore. By 2008, the journalistic applications for Twitter became more apparent. Producers of content have found value in offering one-line descriptions that link to larger pieces of work. News audiences turned to Twitter feeds for eyewitness accounts of real-time events. When gunmen stormed hotels and other sites in Mumbai (the former Bombay) in November, twitter.com was flooded with entries from users in the city who provided updates based on their observations on the ground.
Forbes.com called the news event “Twitter’s moment.” Users typed regular updates “with information or commentary on the crisis, turning a service that specializes in distributing short, personal updates to tight networks of friends and acquaintances into a way for people around the world to tune into personal, real-time accounts of the attacks.”34 Twitter also became a popular tool for reading real-time accounts of the 2008 political conventions, the Israeli invasion of Gaza that began in December 2008 and the January 2009 crash-landing of a US Airways passenger jet in the Hudson River. Google bought a service in 2007 similar to Twitter called Jaiku, which allows users to view messages in chronological order across a timeline. News Ranking Websites Still another way of consuming news online, news-ranking websites, such as reddit.com and digg.com, grew in popularity as well in 2008. These news Web sites not only display news stories, but they also allow users to vote on their favorites and “push” the most popular news stories to the top of the communal Web page. Still, only a small share of Internet news consumers (5%) say they have ever used one of these sites to find news stories. The relatively small group that uses these sites is disproportionately young and male. According to one survey, 11% of men younger than 30 who go online for news say they use news-ranking websites to find stories. Only 3% of the women in that age cohort did so, however, and only 4% of male online news consumers over 30 used them.35 E-mail, among the oldest digital formats, also continued to grow in 2008 as a way for citizens to share news with friends. As of August 2008, the sizable majority of those who went online (68%) said they had been e-mailed a news story by a friend or associate, up from 61% in 2006, according to data from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.36 Fully 27% of Internet users said they received an e-mailed story in the past week. And nearly half of Americans (47%) said they themselves had sent a news story to someone, up nearly 18% from 2006, when the number was 40%. In addition, about 15% of Americans say they receive e-mail news alerts and summaries via their inboxes. Customized News By 2008, more Web news consumers than ever before were also taking advantage of online tools to tailor the news to their needs or tastes. Such customization tools allow people to set up Web pages with their favorite subjects and sources, or to receive e-mail alerts tailored to their interests. By the summer of 2008, about half of online news users (44%) told a Pew survey that they were using some kind customization tool to acquire news.37 That might have taken a number of forms. For instance, the survey found that 22% of Americans say they have a customizable Web page that includes news items.38 These can be as simple as an AOL home page that is adjusted for the local weather forecast to a newspaper Web page programmed to highlight local news to a self-designed home page tailored to specific interests. RSS Many of those who customize their news use RSS, which stands for really simple syndication. The technology allows users to create their own news pages that automatically update such things as the score of favorite sports teams, news stories on topics or by certain sources, local traffic conditions, blogs and other material. According to the Pew survey in the summer of 2008, 7% of Americans said they used the technology. The more time people spend with news online, the more likely they are to create such self-tailored page. About a third (36%) of Internet news users say they have a customizable Web page. But among the heaviest Web news consumers — those who go online for news daily — fully 44% say they have a customizable web page that incorporates news items.39 While RSS has continued to be used, other new options have become more prominent, and RSS, according to Media Analyst Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, has not met “the big claims being made for it several years ago.” Activities online Beyond news, how do Americans divide the whole of their time on the Internet? The bulk of time (45%) was spent accessing content, be it news, music or visiting Wikipedia. They divide the rest of their time among four activities: conducting Internet searches (5%), making online purchases (13%), communicating (28%) and visiting social networking sites (9%).40
Although these figures suggest people spend a very small amount of their time searching (searches usually take seconds to execute), such searching is something virtually all Internet users do. As of November 2008, about 86% of Web users reported having ever used a search engine.41 And about half of Web users engage in search on a typical day.42 Conclusion Was 2008 a breakthrough year for online traffic or a unique event? Certainly the trend lines continued — and at a faster pace. The answer should come soon enough as to whether the election was a transformative moment for the Internet or a one-time news event unusually well suited to the Web’s strengths. Our sense is that we will look back on 2008 as a year that catapulted the Web audience to new, sustained levels. If so, it will have also deepened the paradox of the Internet. While it intensified interest in news, the shift to online news consumption also accelerated the dismantling of the economic foundation for gathering the news. The question going forward, then, becomes an even more desperate effort to monetize that Web audience.
SIDEBAR: Analysis of Nielsen, Hitwise and comScore Rating Services Measuring traffic on the Internet has become increasingly complicated. A number of methods have emerged, but no single methodology has been accepted as a standard. Nielsen and comScore use a panel of Internet users to estimate total U.S. Internet traffic. Just as a telephone polls contact a sample of Americans, Nielsen and comScore contact a sample of Internet users who agree to share how they spend their time on the Web. Internet users who participate then download software on their computers that tracks their online visits without attaching any personally identifiable information to the traffic data to ensure anonymity. ComScore recruits what it calls a convenience sample instead of a simple random sample by offering incentives to participants. ComScore then applies statistical methods to adjust, or weight the results to reflect the demographics of the actual online population.44 For example, after it obtains traffic data from a panel, comScore analysts may discover they have a smaller percentage of males than the online population at large. They then add more results from males so that they are correctly represented. ComScore says this gives it an advantage because it uses more people (about 150,000) and maintains three panels – at work, at home and at universities -- to ensure that the data capture how students are using the Internet differently from adults at home or at work. Hitwise takes a wholly different approach. It does not gather data directly from individual computers as comScore and Nielsen do. Instead, it gets the data from Internet service providers (ISPs) who aggregate traffic data across all the individuals to whom they deliver Internet access. Hitwise provides ISPs with proprietary software that allows ISPs to analyze website usage logs created on their networks. To ensure the data is representative, Hitwise says it collects “from a geographically diverse range of ISP networks in metropolitan and regional areas, representing all types of Internet usage including home, work, educational and public access.” The sample of ISPs, however, is not a purely random one.
Footnotes 1. “Internet Overtakes Newspapers As News Outlet,” Pew Research Center Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, December 23, 2008 2. “Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News,” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, Oct. 31, 2008 3. “Internet Overtakes Newspapers As News Outlet,” Pew Research Center Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, December 23, 2008 4. Patrick Ruffini, “The Internet Is TV. Twitter Is the Internet,” techpresident.com, Dec. 18, 2008 5. This figure is based on PEJ’s analysis of comScore media Metrix data. It represents mean unique visitors of the top 50 websites, excluding weather, entertainment and other specialty sites (another leading internet audience measurement company, Hitwise, calculated a similar audience growth of 23% in its “news and media” category). 6. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online And Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 7. “Internet Overtakes Newspapers As News Outlet,” Pew Research Center Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, December 23, 2008 8. Pew Internet & American Life Project, regular surveys and projections, available at http://www.pewInternet.org/ 9. The Digital Future Report 2009, Center for Digital Future, University of Southern California, Annenberg School Survey 10. If forced to choose, a different survey found, consumers would rather keep their Internet or wireless service and give up their cable subscriptions or landline phones. According to the October 2008 report by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group, “Many consumers, with minor exceptions, view [Internet and wireless access] as essential utilities like water and electricity.” (Wendy Davis, “Survey: In Tough Times, Internet Still Seen As Necessity,” Daily Online Examiner, October 23, 2008) 11. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online And Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 12. “Continuing Partisan Divide in Cable TV News Audiences; Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News, ” Pew Center for the People & the Press, October 31, 2008 13. “Liberal Dems Top Conservative Reps in Donations, Activism,” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, October 23, 2008 14. “Continuing Partisan Divide in Cable TV News Audiences; Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News, ” Pew Center for the People & the Press, October 31, 2008 15. “Continuing Partisan Divide in Cable TV News Audiences; Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News, ” Pew Center for the People & the Press, October 31, 2008 16. Henry Blodget, “Huffington Post Still Blowing Doors Off,” Silicon Valley Insider, October 22, 2008 17. Henry Blodget, “Huffington Post Still Blowing Doors Off,” Silicon Valley Insider, October 22, 2008 18. PEJ Analysis of 2008 comScore web traffic data 19. “Integrating TV & Internet Measurement,” Nielsen website, http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/menuitem.55dc65b4a7d5adff3f65936147a062a0/?vgnextoid=293f0671455bb010VgnVCM100000ac0a260aRCRD (accessed February 11, 2009) 20. ComScore obtains its estimates of the online population through a survey of randomly selected Americans 21. “Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Grew 29 Percent in First Quarter of 2008,” Gartner press release, June 6, 2008 22. Pew Internet & American Life Project, March 2008 available at http://www.pewInternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Mobile.Data.Access.pdf 23. “Moving to Mobile,” Newspaper Association of America, press release, accessed October 10, 2008 24. Tanya Irwin, “AP Launches Mobile News Network App For BlackBerry,” Online Media Daily, October 21, 2008 25. Steve Smith, “Building A Mobile News Network,” Mobile Insider, July 10, 2008 26. Tanya Irwin, “AP Launches Mobile News Network App For BlackBerry,” Online Media Daily, October 21, 2008 27. “AP Launches Mobile News Network App for BlackBerry Smart Phones,” Editor & Publisher, October 20, 2008. 28. Interview with Jeff Litvack, AP’s global product development director, February 5, 2009 29. “Moving to Mobile,” Newspaper Association of America, press release, accessed October 10, 2008 30. David George-Cosh, “Google set to take on iPhone and BlackBerry,” Canwest News Service, accessed from Nanaimo Daily News, Sept 22, 2008 31. Online Publishers Association Internet Activity Index 32. Fully 65% of people 18 to 24 say they have a profile on MySpace, Facebook or another social networking site. That is 82% of those who go online at all. Only about half as many people in their early 30s who go online have created social networking profiles (41%). Among older age groups, much smaller numbers have created profiles. African Americans who go online are much more likely than whites to have a profile on a social networking site: 44% vs. 29%. Roughly 4 in 10 liberal Democrats (43%) who go online -- and 32% of self-described liberal Democrats over all -- say they have a profile on social networking site. That is twice the percentage of conservative Republicans who have social networking profiles. (“Key News Audiences Now Blend Online And Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008) 33. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 34. Brian Caulfield and Naazneen Karmali, “Mumbai: Twitter’s Moment,” Forbes.com, November 28, 2008 35. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 36. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 37. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 38. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 39. “Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources,” Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey, Pew Center for the People & the Press, August 17, 2008 40. Communication is defined as visits to Web sites and Internet applications that are designed to facilitate the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information directly between individuals or groups of individuals. Examples include web-based email, instant messanging services, and online listservs. Online Purchases are defined as Web sites and Internet applications that are designed for shopping online, like Amazon.com or eBay. 41. Online Publishers Association Internet Activity Index 42. Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 2008, available at http://www.pewInternet.org/trends/Daily_Internet_Activities_Jan_07_2009.htm 43. “Integrating TV & Internet Measurement,” Nielsen website, http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/menuitem.55dc65b4a7d5adff3f65936147a062a0/?vgnextoid=293f0671455bb010VgnVCM100000ac0a260aRCRD (accessed February 11, 2009) 44. ComScore obtains its estimates of the online population through a survey of randomly selected Americans
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