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Published Monday, November 21, 2005 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

NEWS ABOUT NEWS

Don't know why I haven't seen more written about this tidbit of information from last week, so I guess it's up to me to point out these revelations in the shift to online newspaper reading. Namely, that Boston.com, the site operated by the Boston Globe, has the dubious distinction of being the only top online newspaper site to lose readers in the past year. Read the press release for yourself. At first glance, you're impressed to see that Boston.com has enough reach to rank as the 6th most-visited newspaper site (behind only www.nytimes.com, www.usatoday.com, www.washingtonpost.com, www.latimes.com, and www.sfgate.com). They're all adding readers -- and the industry as a whole (which includes www.bostonherald.com) gained 11 percent. So what made people shy away from Boston.com? Was it the required registration? Are they going to a different Boston-based news site? You'd better believe the folks at Morrissey Boulevard are trying to find out the answers (when they're not busy going through the throes of buyout agony that rode through the Herald newsroom this spring).