There’s been talk this week about a "watershed" and a "tipping point" for the role and influence of blogs in UK politics this week, prompted by the role played by Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale in the re-ignited scandal pyre that is John Prescott.
All well and good, but I always feel more comfortable with a brace of serious stats to back up an argument these days. Thankfully Heather Hopkins at Hitwise is happy to do the honours.
Top findings from her analysis show:
- Searches for Tory blogger Iain Dale were higher than for John Prescott himself.
- Iain Dale’s blog gets more visitors than either the official Conservative or Labour websites (no surprise, which reminds me: compare the traffic of some prominent PR bloggers with their agencies’ home pages – the bloggers often win).
- People are more likely to be searching for information about the affairs than the concurrent corruption scandal involving the US casino magnate.
Reinforces the point that because of social media we are moving from a media of Chatham House rules (closed briefings, deals doen to keep information out of the "public domain") to glass house rules – everything in the open, for everyone to see, fewer censors and professional gatekeepers getting to say what is and isn’t news.
This makes David Aaronvitch uncomfortable, but it is the future we are moving to and it’s not up to him, or Chris Farrington, or Martin Sorrell, or me, or you, whether that happens or not.
It already has.
Tags: prescott, iain_dale, guido_fawkes, blogs, UK, politics, newspapers, PR, public relations
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