Poliblog Perspective

I’ve posted a couple of times recently about the Slugger Awards, and the Slugger O Toole blog.

Here’s a nugget to chew on which throws some light on why Slugger is further integrated into the local political process than any other blog in the country: Slugger’s penetration of it’s local market is up to five times higher than any other site (to my knowledge, anyway).

A note on numbers: I am making the comparison by comparing Unique Visitors (representing how many individual computers have visited the website) for the largest political site in a country (England, Wales etc.) with the population of the Local Market. It’s not a perfect comparison, since the percentage of blog traffic from outside the locality (country) varies, but it is good enough for this broad conclusion.

Site / Absolute Uniques per Month / Population / “Market Penetration”

• Northern Ireland: Slugger O Toole ( 23,000 ) vs 1.75 million = 1.3%.
• Scotland: Mr Eugenides (~15-16,000 ) vs 5.2 million = 0.3%.
• (*) Wales: Ordovicius (~6-10,000) vs 2.9 million = 0.3%.
• England: Guido Fawkes (110,000) vs 51 million = 0.2%.

(*) In Wales there are several blogs at roughly the same level.

I’m not claiming huge accuracy for these figures, but the difference is startling even if my numbers are some way off. The sources are all from hosted web counter services.

It looks as though Slugger may have crossed several thresholds the others have not yet reached for an independent political site, and that - combined with the fact that it is 6 years old, nonpartisan and is read (for example) by nearly all Northern Ireland Parliamentarians - may account for the site’s ability to impact in some broader way on the political process itself.

This is a broad brush thesis and I am open to comment / correction.

Wrapping Up

I’d be interested to see the comparative local figures for English regional political sites - such as The Stirrer (Birmingham).

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