Data released today by the Newspaper Association of America indicates continued growth of newspaper Web site traffic. While some had believed there would be an eventual cresting of the news traffic online, that doesn't appear to be the case --- at least not yet.
The NAA data shows newspaper Web traffic was up 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 over the same period in 2008, with unique visitors pegged at 73.3 million visitors. Even more hopeful inside that data is the growth in overall page views, 12.8 per cent for a total of 3.5 billion.
The implications here are manifold, but the major takeaway would appear to be that the content is proving an attractive entity and that it and its audience are finding each other. What isn't as clear is how effectively newspaper sites can monetize the audience to fortify operations in a period of print advertising declines
