March 27, 2004

COLUMNIST CONFESSES

Professor John Quiggin’s site attracts fewer than 300 unique readers per day, yet it’s still more popular than his column in the Australian Financial Review:

It's puzzling to me that, although the stats say the blog has far fewer readers than the Fin Review (where I've been writing for ten years) my daily experience is the opposite. Far more people in my circle of friends and acquaintances seem to be aware of the blog than have read the column.

It's possibly unwise of Quiggin to admit this. Editors at the Fin Review might ask why they’re running a column that nobody, including the author’s friends, can be arsed reading.

Posted by Tim Blair at March 27, 2004 02:57 PM
Comments

TB thinks that Pr Q has given himself up as ignored pundit.
The resolution is simple: Pr Q's column audience is comprised of the Alpha demographic of professional movers and shakers which heavily patronise the Financial Review. This probably has many readers, but they never interact with Pr Q.
However, Pr Q's blog audience is, like this blogs audience, comprised of the Omega demographic, of political big mouths, wannabes and do-nothings, or his close personal friends.
Clealry Pr Q's personal and political circles do not heavily overlap his professional readership.
That does not imply that he has a small professional readership, just that he keeps a strict wall seperating his professional from personal and political lives.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at March 27, 2004 at 03:52 PM

Why should Pr Q’s close personal friends read his blog if they don’t read his column? You need to provide a cogent argument that they’re not from your Omega Demographic if you want to keep from insulting them & Pr Q.

Posted by: ForNow at March 27, 2004 at 04:15 PM

Perhaps they're from the shadowy Delta segment.

Posted by: tim at March 27, 2004 at 04:25 PM

That’s Delta Quadrant, aka the Galactic “Down Under.”

Posted by: ForNow at March 27, 2004 at 05:01 PM

The Omega demographic can't bear to interact with the Alpah demographic. It is tragic to observe the former, with its nose pressed up against the glass of the latters cosy office, gazing wistfully inside seeking some kind of vicarious satisfaction. The pathos of any direct encounter would be catastrophic, comparable to matter interacting with anti-matter. It could possibly lead to the destruction of the entire cosmos, so best not go there.

Posted by: Jack Strocchi at March 27, 2004 at 05:52 PM

his audience is not shrinking. it is just becoming 'more selective'.

Posted by: Bilal at March 27, 2004 at 06:45 PM

What are you talking about mate? He's lapping up the hits... that is, from my perspective of course.
Which is a fair suck of the sav.

Posted by: JR at March 27, 2004 at 10:16 PM

Joh Quiggin also is a member of the Crooked Timber group blog. The system for most of the Crooked Timber contributors seems to be that their posts will appear both in their individual blogs and in CT.

The point is that Crooked Timber is a big operation. I'd guess it gets stacks more hits per day than 300.

(The reason that this caught my eye is that I was just this morning engaging in debate - perfectly pleasantly albeit from very different viewpoints about the Iraq war - with John Quiggin in the comments to one of his posts on Crooked Timber.)


Posted by: Natalie Solent at March 27, 2004 at 10:16 PM

Sometimes i think quiggin is a complete dickhead, but i now realisee there is a niche in public policy for someone to offer the negative - privatisation bad, IR changes bad, tax reform bad. This bloke is more conservative than alexandar downer's grandfather.

Posted by: bugner at March 28, 2004 at 08:15 PM