Data fromComScoretoday reveals that UK tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail’s website,MailOnlinehas overtakenThe Huffington Postto become the number 2 ‘newspaper website’ in the world.
AsMediaWeekreports, MailOnline’s unique visitors rose 27% between February and March, up to 39,635,000. Despite seeing a 20% rise itself, The Huffington Post was pushed into third place with 38,429,000. Meanwhile,the New York Timessaw an epic 41% increase, taking it to a record 61,964,000 global unique users.
With the New York Times’ paywall havingkicked induring mid-March, that lead could well be reduced in ComScore’s next set of figures. However, in the short-term, the prospect of MailOnline or the Huffington Post actually overtaking the New York Times seems slim. Casual readers can still access twenty pages on the Times’ website each month without paying, while clickthroughs from blogs and social media sources like Twitter and Facebook are currently unlimited
Still, the rise of the Daily Mail’s site shows that its formula of freely accessible, celebrity-focused news and carefully crafted scandal pieces is working wonders. In fact, as we’ve noted before, it’sa very blog-like formula. With this in mind, and the fact that the most-definitely-a-blog Huffington Post is so high in ComScore’s league table, it’s worth questioning “What is a newspaper website anyway?” and should ComScore’s definitions be revised?
Story byMartin SFP Bryant
Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletter PreSeed Now and technology and media consultancy Big Revolution. He was previously(show all)Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletterPreSeed Nowand technology and media consultancyBig Revolution. He was previously Editor-in-Chief at TNW.
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