socialmedian: A Difference of Opinion

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A Difference of Opinion

Submitted by Scbalazs from Google Reader

Nov 04, 2009

Summary

In September, The Huffington Post surpassed the Washington Post in terms of unique visitors. "The Huff Post was up 26% year-over-year to 9.4
million uniques, while uniques at the Washingtonpost.com dropped almost
30% to 9.2 million," reports Jennifer Saba at Editor & Publisher. Look out, media giants. You are never safe.

What’s particularly interesting about this audience migration is that HuffPo often finds its stories from more established news sources — New York Times, Wall Street Journal, WashPo itself. Rarely (if ever) does it go the other way. But HuffPo’s reporters seem to have more freedom of opinion in their pieces. So why is this important?

A writer’s opinion is attractive to readers because people like to have their views validated — or they like to unabashedly disagree. Check the comment sections. On The Huffington Post, they are louder, more passionate. The other online publications pale in comparison. It’s a matter of agitation and self-expression.

The message is this: take a well-reported story, weigh in yourself, and you’ve created content your

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