More People Viewing Top Newspapers Online

The newspaper business has not been a very good business to be in as of late. Sales are declining as are advertisers due to the poor economy. To make matters worse, the internet just surpassed the newspapers as the number two source of news behind the television. But amidst all the gloom a bright spot has emerged. According to Nielsen Online, more people are visiting the websites of the top ten newspapers (source: tech.yahoo.com).

Nielsen's results showed that 40 million people in the United States visited at least one of the top ten newspaper sites in the month of December. That represented a 16 percent increase from the previous year. The report showed that the New York Times is still the top newspaper site visited with 18 million unique visitors in the month of December (a 6 percent increase from the previous year). But with the good news came some more bad news.

The people that are visiting these newspaper websites are not visiting very long. According to Nielson the average visit is a tick more than a half-hour. The problem with the length of the visit is that it is not enough time to capture the reader and prompt them to use the online advertising. The newspapers are frantic to figure out ways to get visitors to stay longer in an effort to combat the huge decline in print ads (source: tech.yahoo.com).

The reason for the small amount of time being spent on the site is casual visitors. While some visitors will go to the newspaper sites and spend a great deal of time there, there are even more that are more aggressive about finding their news. They may visit, but it will quick and casual, and then they will move on to another site. So when averaged out the time spent is a little over 30 minutes per visitor but not for each visitor (source: tech.yahoo.com).

Still those in the newspaper businesses are optimistic that perhaps this trend will continue and that their online presence will increase. If it does it is simply a matter of time before the online advertising begins to do its intended job and generate some much needed revenues.

The conclusion of more people visiting newspapers websites is that the world continues to go digital. The newspapers are left with no option other than reform to what the people want or go out of business. And while none of the major newspapers wants to go out of business, I'm sure they will all conform and give Americans what they want; a better source of news online.