Partly inspired by Tom Whitwell (and once more cribbing from Martin Belam), I had a look at the Google Reader RSS subscriber numbers for the blogs and columns that the Times (to its credit) provides here. The big caveat – it is only Google Reader. So who wins?
The results are impressive for the bloggers. (Although they are not mentioned off the main page – you have to hit a tab at Comment to find them.)
Here are the top ten (using rss.xml, atom.xml and index.rdf), and after that their position on the main blog page:
- Comment Central 238 (1)
- A Don’s Life 197 (12)
- Ruth Gledhill 192 (11)
- Charles Bremner 170 (4)
- Eco Worrier 168 (10)
- Technology 138 (17)
- Formula One blog 137 (21)
- Peter Stothard 112 (14)
- Asia Exile 101 (16)
- Money Central 100 (7)
Danny Finkelstein’s Comment Central blog is the clear winner, but Mary Beard and Ruth Gledhill are both right behind.
Compare now, the columnists. Poor old Jeremy Clarkson wouldn’t even break into the blogging top ten.
- Jeremy Clarkson 84
- Matthew Parris 19
- David Aaronovitch 15
- Andrew Sullivan 12
- Simon Barnes 10
- Rod Liddle 9
Anatole Kaletsky 15
Simon Jenkins 10
Michael Portillo 10
Caitlin Moran 9
William Rees-Mogg 9
So should Times’ ed Robert Thomson’s final act in office be to start handing out the P45s to columnists? Well, hold on there!
Finkelstein’s blog is run off Typepad. His column appears to run off the Times’ content management system. And you can’t even find the letters RSS on the page.
So you would have to be very committed to reading his columns to be one of Danny’s five subscribers. Hard to believe that his columns are less subscriber-worthy than his blog by a margin of 233.
But a hell of a lot of perserverance is required to sign up for one over the other…the curse of the content management system?
BTW If you want to know what kind of blogs really gets Google Reader subscriptions Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine hits 3,992 and – from a different place entirely – Little Green Footballs 1,094.