I know everyone has said "Private Eye" isn't as funny as it used to be since the second edition. That aside it seems clear that they have not responded to the likes of you, Iain Dale, Recess Monkey and the blogosphere in general.
We live in 24 hour news cycle, the idea of a fortnightly publication for political gossip is the funniest thing about the Eye nowadays.
You are very shrewd to target them. But why the need for adverts? My understanding (admittedly from what I have read about your identity in the Guardian and elsewhere) is that you have a few quid from a City career.
For the sake of Mrs Fawkes and Ms Fawkes this blogger needs an assistant to take some of the strain and they will need paying.
Blogging from a Blackberry on holiday seems a tad obssessive.
Croydonian,
Will take adverts from Saab and Saddam Hussein. Have, ironically, had most interest from Spin merchants.
The adverts for Ebay and the like have been moderately succesful but the readership demographhic is very media/political opinion former centric. They are not really Ebay's target market. (Anne Summers and Laithwaites wine merchants seem to be working out well mind you.)
I don't think many trees have died for Private Eye - it's been printed on recycled bog-roll for over 40 years. One of the unsung advantages of Guido's blog is that I can make the type large enough to read. More power to your organ.
June 1, 2006 at 2:54 PM
Anonymous
said...
just thought I'd say, your blog is a superb, invaluable, and entertaining resource. Plus reading it is so much better than doing any proper work.
Scandals do bring readers to a gossip blog. As do leadership elections and big rows.
June 1, 2006 at 3:06 PM
Anonymous
said...
Of course the main difference between Guido and The Eye is that latter has become institutionally left wing, almost a part of the Labour establishment these days. Peter Cook must be turning in his grave!
June 1, 2006 at 3:40 PM
Anonymous
said...
Hey Lagwolf you bear an uncanny resemblence to Andrew Ian Dodge, anything we should know??
June 1, 2006 at 3:43 PM
Anonymous
said...
Peter Cook was a raving marxist - what do you mean turning in his grave? Guido's graph plots something but I'm not sure what. Unfortunatley you don't have readership demographics to hard sell advertisers.
June 1, 2006 at 4:08 PM
Anonymous
said...
Bonfire of the vanities is what is needed here. Self promotion didn't harm anyone I suppose, but it's taking the biscuit to compare a conservative biased blog with the Eye which doesn't take any prisoners. Are these just 'hits' or real individual visits? Let the love-fest with conservative home blossom in mutual admiration.......
Click on the image to enlarge and you'll see 211k hits, 150k unique visitors.
June 1, 2006 at 4:29 PM
Anonymous
said...
You should redesign this blog to better position the advertising. Who would want to pay for a little box 2/3 of the way down a page? Kill the Google ads. They're a poor generator of revenue and, in the case of specialist topics, often ill-suited to serve up relevant ads. An advertiser wants a prominent, well-designed space on a page - anything else looks cheap and not worth the marketing ££.
Go after advertisers that are relevant to your audience as well. Westminster-based business, legal firms, head-hunters, etc.
And I'm keen for a new job - the London Rocket Group has become a wee bit routine after all. Perhaps you'd consider a part-time assistant to keep the lights on while you wander the world?
Matt no for I am he. Or he is me. Lagwolf is merely my nickname for Blogger (and gaming name) from back in the days when you could not have spaces and length was limited.
Congratulations, Guido. Your success is well-deserved.
June 1, 2006 at 4:52 PM
Anonymous
said...
Too often, you trail gossip but you don't come through. Hairdressers tease. Braves get scalps. Private Eye got Cecil Parkinson, which at the time was kind of like killing Heydrich. Right now you're not even close.
Surely though this site has only a limited lifespan?
Because once Dave Cameron is elected PM, he'll usher in a new age of political fairness and transparency which will make it impossible for anyone to make a living from political satire ... ;)
And another thing - where is the amusing photoshop picture of Prescott being turfed out of his home that we the readers have come to expect from you Guido?
June 1, 2006 at 7:33 PM
Anonymous
said...
You only have x amount ofactual unique visitors if everyone only ever visits the site from one computer in that particular month. Given that I read the blog regularly from three different computers (and you can count four for blackberry) that would significantly reduce your readership if its replicated by many people. I suspect most people access the site at least at work and on home computers.
The thing about the old dead trees is that their sales figures can be multiplied up for actual readership - with a blog you have to work downwards from even the unique visitor figures to get an accurate figure for the number of people who will see the ads. I suspect even then its impossible to get a real picture.
That said, if you're making a packet from the ads I'd work for you.
I stopped trusting the Eye when I sent them an e-mail a few years ago and they then printed it almost word for word as a news story and didn't give me credit.
When I rang up to find out why, they fobbed me off and then hung up.
Anon @ 7.54, it's less than that in fact, Statcounter counts a unique visit as someone not having come back for 'x' hours, normally either 1 or 6.
So, in your case, assuming you look from both home and work, you alone count for a fair chunk of those uniques, as do I.
I mean, for a UK political blog, those are pretty impressive numbers, but to claim ""beating private eye" is hyperbole, unless we're going to claim that most Ey readers buy multiple copies of the same mag. I most certainly don't.
Well done Guido BTW, although, um, care to point me at your ad handlers? My new site will have a fair few more readers than the current one.
Bono or Ron Jeremy...hrm...know which I would choose.
June 2, 2006 at 1:57 AM
Anonymous
said...
Choose Bono: Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy's horribly overexposed.
Guido, don't know what you've changed in the past 24 hours, but the site takes an age to load and is very sticky when you're trying to scroll...perhaps it's all those 199,999 readers, tugging on the other end of the blog?
June 2, 2006 at 6:27 AM
Anonymous
said...
Guido - It's a straight choice: you or private eye. For content you win. For advertisers with its 600k subscribers it wins. On the subject of straight choices, your bar charts must be pinched from a lib dem leaflet.
As a poster has already noted above a unique vistor is simply a PC which has not visited for 6 hours. It is not a totaly different animal. If it were a totally different animal your chart would imply that 150k punters logged on in may and each logged on only 1.4 times on average? All regular users know that is unlikely. You have so much content we all log on 3 times a day or more. So that might mean you record 2 unique visitors and 3 page loads per day for me or 60 and 90 pcm. That would imply that in fact only 12,500 punters use your blog, meaning that you are still some way behind Mr Hislop.
Iain Dale seems to have made the same miscalculation. Such an audience (given its demographic) must have a commercial value but perhaps not quite as large as you might have hoped.
June 2, 2006 at 8:49 AM
Anonymous
said...
Those that read via an RSS reader probably hit it once a day at the very least.
I pull the feed once per hour personally I read the headlines through RSS (pulled onto a different computer) then click through to the comments either at work or at home. Sometimes I can be up to three "unique visitors" a day.
On the flipside is the point that you may have multiple people behind each IP though.
32 comments:
I know everyone has said "Private Eye" isn't as funny as it used to be since the second edition. That aside it seems clear that they have not responded to the likes of you, Iain Dale, Recess Monkey and the blogosphere in general.
We live in 24 hour news cycle, the idea of a fortnightly publication for political gossip is the funniest thing about the Eye nowadays.
You are very shrewd to target them. But why the need for adverts? My understanding (admittedly from what I have read about your identity in the Guardian and elsewhere) is that you have a few quid from a City career.
Do you really want the obligatory Saab ads they have in every edition of Private Eye?
PE claims a readership of 693,000, by the way.
John,
For the sake of Mrs Fawkes and Ms Fawkes this blogger needs an assistant to take some of the strain and they will need paying.
Blogging from a Blackberry on holiday seems a tad obssessive.
Croydonian,
Will take adverts from Saab and Saddam Hussein. Have, ironically, had most interest from Spin merchants.
The adverts for Ebay and the like have been moderately succesful but the readership demographhic is very media/political opinion former centric. They are not really Ebay's target market. (Anne Summers and Laithwaites wine merchants seem to be working out well mind you.)
Well done. Lets hope your readership keeps rising and the advertisers take notice.
disabled divorcee also crippled by £20,000 debt. Any help greatly appreciated: S/C: 54-45-60 Acc: 56734251
Seems a big jump April to May.
Do you know of any reason why Guido?
I'd guess it's due to there being good source material with the Labour scandels lately plus more links/mentions from BBC et al...
I don't think many trees have died for Private Eye - it's been printed on recycled bog-roll for over 40 years. One of the unsung advantages of Guido's blog is that I can make the type large enough to read. More power to your organ.
just thought I'd say, your blog is a superb, invaluable, and entertaining resource. Plus reading it is so much better than doing any proper work.
Scandals do bring readers to a gossip blog. As do leadership elections and big rows.
Of course the main difference between Guido and The Eye is that latter has become institutionally left wing, almost a part of the Labour establishment these days. Peter Cook must be turning in his grave!
Hey Lagwolf you bear an uncanny resemblence to Andrew Ian Dodge, anything we should know??
Peter Cook was a raving marxist - what do you mean turning in his grave?
Guido's graph plots something but I'm not sure what. Unfortunatley you don't have readership demographics to hard sell advertisers.
Bonfire of the vanities is what is needed here. Self promotion didn't harm anyone I suppose, but it's taking the biscuit to compare a conservative biased blog with the Eye which doesn't take any prisoners.
Are these just 'hits' or real individual visits?
Let the love-fest with conservative home blossom in mutual admiration.......
Click on the image to enlarge and you'll see 211k hits, 150k unique visitors.
You should redesign this blog to better position the advertising. Who would want to pay for a little box 2/3 of the way down a page? Kill the Google ads. They're a poor generator of revenue and, in the case of specialist topics, often ill-suited to serve up relevant ads. An advertiser wants a prominent, well-designed space on a page - anything else looks cheap and not worth the marketing ££.
Go after advertisers that are relevant to your audience as well. Westminster-based business, legal firms, head-hunters, etc.
And I'm keen for a new job - the London Rocket Group has become a wee bit routine after all. Perhaps you'd consider a part-time assistant to keep the lights on while you wander the world?
Matt no for I am he. Or he is me. Lagwolf is merely my nickname for Blogger (and gaming name) from back in the days when you could not have spaces and length was limited.
Perhaps you should include regular cartoons which rely on exactly the same joke as the previous issue's?
Congratulations, Guido. Your success is well-deserved.
Too often, you trail gossip but you don't come through. Hairdressers tease. Braves get scalps. Private Eye got Cecil Parkinson, which at the time was kind of like killing Heydrich. Right now you're not even close.
Guido, I am so pleased. You have more readers than the Daily Express. Probably.
PS Lagwolf...you are really Bono, aren't you? Do you feel like editing the site while the editor thereof takes cocaine?
Surely though this site has only a limited lifespan?
Because once Dave Cameron is elected PM, he'll usher in a new age of political fairness and transparency which will make it impossible for anyone to make a living from political satire ... ;)
And another thing - where is the amusing photoshop picture of Prescott being turfed out of his home that we the readers have come to expect from you Guido?
You only have x amount ofactual unique visitors if everyone only ever visits the site from one computer in that particular month. Given that I read the blog regularly from three different computers (and you can count four for blackberry) that would significantly reduce your readership if its replicated by many people. I suspect most people access the site at least at work and on home computers.
The thing about the old dead trees is that their sales figures can be multiplied up for actual readership - with a blog you have to work downwards from even the unique visitor figures to get an accurate figure for the number of people who will see the ads. I suspect even then its impossible to get a real picture.
That said, if you're making a packet from the ads I'd work for you.
I stopped trusting the Eye when I sent them an e-mail a few years ago and they then printed it almost word for word as a news story and didn't give me credit.
When I rang up to find out why, they fobbed me off and then hung up.
Anon @ 7.54, it's less than that in fact, Statcounter counts a unique visit as someone not having come back for 'x' hours, normally either 1 or 6.
So, in your case, assuming you look from both home and work, you alone count for a fair chunk of those uniques, as do I.
I mean, for a UK political blog, those are pretty impressive numbers, but to claim ""beating private eye" is hyperbole, unless we're going to claim that most Ey readers buy multiple copies of the same mag. I most certainly don't.
Well done Guido BTW, although, um, care to point me at your ad handlers? My new site will have a fair few more readers than the current one.
Bono or Ron Jeremy...hrm...know which I would choose.
Choose Bono: Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy's horribly overexposed.
Guido, don't know what you've changed in the past 24 hours, but the site takes an age to load and is very sticky when you're trying to scroll...perhaps it's all those 199,999 readers, tugging on the other end of the blog?
Guido - It's a straight choice: you or private eye. For content you win. For advertisers with its 600k subscribers it wins. On the subject of straight choices, your bar charts must be pinched from a lib dem leaflet.
As a poster has already noted above a unique vistor is simply a PC which has not visited for 6 hours. It is not a totaly different animal. If it were a totally different animal your chart would imply that 150k punters logged on in may and each logged on only 1.4 times on average? All regular users know that is unlikely. You have so much content we all log on 3 times a day or more. So that might mean you record 2 unique visitors and 3 page loads per day for me or 60 and 90 pcm. That would imply that in fact only 12,500 punters use your blog, meaning that you are still some way behind Mr Hislop.
Iain Dale seems to have made the same miscalculation. Such an audience (given its demographic) must have a commercial value but perhaps not quite as large as you might have hoped.
Those that read via an RSS reader probably hit it once a day at the very least.
I pull the feed once per hour personally I read the headlines through RSS (pulled onto a different computer) then click through to the comments either at work or at home. Sometimes I can be up to three "unique visitors" a day.
On the flipside is the point that you may have multiple people behind each IP though.
My blog only has 2 readers. I hate you.
There's still a lot more information and gossip in Private Eye than in your blog.
Also your webstats make certain assumptions, for example that nobody accesses your site from more than one site (say at home, and at work).
As Cabral said: "Tell no lies, claim no easy victories" - I would expect any good revolutionary to know that.