Today I faced some tedious work on a project that must be finished by the end of the week, so my procrastination methods reached new heights of creativity. For the first time, I clicked on the “Most Popular” tab at the top of the NY Times website. This gives me another opportunity for procrastination, by typing this blog post, because I noticed something surprising: There’s not much overlap between the 10 “most e-mailed” and the 10 “most blogged” recent stories. Only 3 stories are on both “top 10” lists…which is to say, 7 of the most e-mailed stories are not among those that drew the attention of the most bloggers, and 7 of the most-blogged stories didn’t make the cut for most emailers. I don’t know if this is typical — maybe this is an unusual week — but I find it surprising. If a story seems like the kind of thing that would interest your friends, wouldn’t it also be a good one to blog about? Does the difference simply reflect demographics? Perhaps bloggers are younger, and are interested in different stories than non-bloggers?
I can see how the results may be right…
People would e-mail to their friends something new that they think there friends wouldn't have heard about.
People would blog about something that was controversial i.e. something that already has a considerable buzz around it.
e.g. you'd email the Haitian story on day 1 but you'd blog about it on days 2+.
It may also be related to how factual the story is: the more factual then the more e-mailed (it contains useful information, who can argue with facts), the more opinionated the more blogged (opinions and tone drive a response).
Maybe it's a technical issue: how do they track their "most emailed"? If it's by tracking who uses an "email this" link, well, I've never used one because they don't work for me, since I use gmail. Which comes with a blogger account. If it's on the other side, looking at referrers and trying to guess which are from clicking on links in received emails, how does that work for people who don't read their email in a web browser? There is almost certainly a difference between bloggers and non-bloggers in the tools they use to manipulate the Web and send email.
Those lists are also, by design, time-sensitive. So if it takes them longer to notice new blog posts (say they have to wait for the googlebot) than new emails (say they rely on "email this" links) the time difference could account for different article lists.
Finally, of course, their goal is not to gather statistics but to attract attention to articles that people will stay and read, so a canny programmer might take steps to avoid too many overlaps in the lists.
Here's one theory:
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/01/x-are-from-ema…
Don't know how well it explains what you found.
Andrew,
Isn't there a qualitative difference between an "I told you so" E-mail and a purported insightful comment by a blogger on her blog ? I would also not be surprised by the following:
– unlike you, some bloggers are slower to digest an information, making it likely that a peak in the E-mail category is eventually followed by a peak in the blog category.
– I am also suspicious on how they figure out that their article are being blogged about.
Igor.
Lots of good explanations so far, to throw another one in: Email is 1:1, blogging is 1:many. When someone emails me an article it's often on a topic we've discussed and they know I personally am interested in. It's additionally often not a major news event, as it's a safe assumption your contact has heard about Haiti without your contribution. In contrast, when I blog I want to find a topic that's generally interesting to readers. Thus perhaps audience size pushes emails towards specialized topics and blogs towards generally interesting content?
I've heard the most popular news stories are animal tales, but that wouldn't make it much of a blogger's topic for other than eyeballs.
Yes, I often get articles emailed to me a day or two after I've already read them, by kindly well-wishers (things to do with endurance sport or books, primarily) – they are often bland, well-behind-the-curve summaries of more interesting and specialized material that can be found elsewhere & with which I am already cognizant! Whereas stories that are blogged are more likely to be either controversial or breaking news…
(p.s. though really I am with you on this James Patterson question, and as an academic find mental stimulation more of an incentive than money or prestige, I think it would widely be considered plausible that Patterson's main motive for continuing to produce books is to amass wealth!)
Jenny: Good point. I'd discounted money as a motivation because I'm sure Patterson already has enough $ to buy whatever he wants, fly first-class, have a personal chef, etc. But that's as reasonable (actually more so) than academics' desire for award, journal publications, and other forms of applause. Yes, we can want such things because they give us more scope to promote our important ideas, but just as reasonable would be Patterson's corresponding view that occupying 50% of the fiction bestseller list is a way for him to promote literacy among the masses.