Nielsen//NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT), a global leader in Internet media and market research, announced today that Web traffic to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers grew 210 percent year over year in December. The overall unique audience growth to these online newspapers was 9 percent year over year. Unique visitors to blog pages accounted for 13 percent of their December 2006 Web traffic, up 9 percentage points from 4 percent in December 2005.

“As Web 2.0 becomes a predominant online consumer model, traditional publishers are adopting interactive forums like blogs,” said Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. “It makes perfect sense for online newspapers, where responding to a blog posting is like writing an instant letter to the editor,” she continued.

Blog Pages Skew Male
The overall unique audience to the top 10 online newspapers skewed male, with 60 percent men and 40 percent women. Among newspaper blog pages, this skew intensified, with 66 percent men and 34 percent women. But both men and women are contributing to unique audience growth in this arena, with men increasing 226 percent and women increasing 183 percent year over year.

“Men tend to be both early adopters of new technologies and avid consumers of news,” said Creekmore.  “That having been said, women make up slightly more than half of the active Internet universe and we can expect them to play an increasingly significant role in blog consumption."