Digital Quarters – Ben Elowitz
Wetpaint CEO Ben Elowitz on the Future of Digital Media
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About Ben Elowitz
About Ben Elowitz Ben Elowitz is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a technology platform company that is reinventing the media model on the social web. The company attracts more than 15 million unique visitors monthly on its platform. In addition to Digital Quarters, he writes Media Success, a bold and forthright newsletter for digital media thought leaders. His work has been featured in FORTUNE, TechCrunch, All Things D, The Huffington Post, Forbes, TIME, CNNMoney, paidContent, and CNBC.com, among others. Prior to Wetpaint, Ben co-founded Blue Nile (NILE), the largest online retailer of luxury goods. Ben was also an early employee at Fatbrain.com (FATB), an ecommerce company that went public in 1998 and was sold to Barnes & Noble in 1999. Ben holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is an angel investor in a number of media and ecommerce companies, and is a frequent conference speaker on digital media, social content, and entrepreneurship.
by Ben Elowitz
Facebook has maintained its squeeze on sending traffic out to web publishers for another month.
The average publisher on the Social Leaderboard lost 0.1 percentage points in social composition from May to June. The most social publishers fared the worst, with the top ten losing an average of 0.6 percentage points month-over-month.
The Top 3: Wetpaint Entertainment, NFL, People
Even after losing 1.5 percentage points since May, Wetpaint Entertainment held the top spot on the Social Leaderboard with almost 30% of traffic coming from Facebook and Twitter. The #2 spot was taken by NFL, which climbed three spots on the leaderboard and drew 12% of total traffic from social channels in June. After holding second place for two months, People fell to 4th place, and MTV held steady at 3rd.
Average Loss: 100,000 Social Visitors
Each month, we measure social traffic two ways: by composition (percent of traffic from social); and by total volume (number of social visits). In June, volumes also saw a slight decline. Wetpaint fared better than most, adding 100,000 visitors in June and becoming the 11th most social publisher by volume (not counting portals) with 1.4 million social visits. The Huffington Post still holds the top spot in the volume ranking, with 6.5 million social visitors in June.
Guess Who Squeezed Traffic Even More?
While Facebook traffic to publishers was down this month, Google traffic was down even more. This could be a turning point – the gap between Google’s and Facebook’s traffic contributions to publishers has been widening in Google’s favor since March, but the June results show a reversal of the trend. Will Facebook finally close the gap and officially become a more important traffic source for publishers than Google? Check back next month to see if the trend continues.
Details for Social Leaderboard Publishers:
|
MONTHLY RANKINGS |
|
||||||
|
Jun |
May |
Apr |
Name of Publisher (Owner) | URL |
Monthly Uniques |
% from Social |
Change |
|
1 |
1 |
1 |
Wetpaint Entertainment | WETPAINT.COM |
4,172,874 |
29.3% |
-1.5% |
|
2 |
5 |
5 |
National Football League | NFL.COM |
4,005,954 |
12.0% |
1.6% |
|
3 |
3 |
4 |
MTV | MTV.COM |
10,314,480 |
10.8% |
-0.1% |
|
4 |
2 |
2 |
People | PEOPLE.COM |
12,424,002 |
10.5% |
-1.0% |
|
5 |
7 |
9 |
TMZ | TMZ.COM |
11,485,750 |
8.7% |
0.1% |
|
6 |
4 |
3 |
NBC Universal | NBC.COM |
5,210,665 |
8.5% |
-2.0% |
|
7 |
8 |
10 |
Yahoo! | YAHOO.COM |
155,141,946 |
7.3% |
0.1% |
|
8 |
10 |
11 |
Major League Baseball | MLB.COM |
14,857,814 |
6.8% |
0.1% |
|
9 |
9 |
8 |
Patch (Aol) | PATCH.COM |
11,178,542 |
6.7% |
-0.4% |
|
10 |
6 |
7 |
CBS | CBS.COM |
5,130,686 |
6.2% |
-2.7% |
|
11 |
11 |
12 |
Aol | AOL.COM |
48,274,409 |
6.2% |
0.0% |
|
12 |
28 |
31 |
E! Entertainment Television | EONLINE.COM |
6,036,527 |
5.8% |
2.1% |
|
13 |
15 |
16 |
Entertainment Weekly | EW.COM |
5,648,180 |
5.5% |
0.3% |
|
14 |
14 |
19 |
TV Guide | TVGUIDE.COM |
5,701,617 |
5.3% |
0.0% |
|
15 |
16 |
17 |
IGN (News Corp) | IGN.COM |
8,385,741 |
5.3% |
0.1% |
|
16 |
19 |
21 |
CNN | CNN.COM |
42,355,439 |
4.9% |
0.1% |
|
17 |
18 |
22 |
MSN | MSN.COM |
93,297,562 |
4.9% |
0.0% |
|
18 |
20 |
20 |
FOX News (News Corp) | FOXNEWS.COM |
25,048,343 |
4.8% |
0.0% |
|
19 |
17 |
18 |
US Weekly | USMAGAZINE.COM |
6,349,666 |
4.7% |
-0.3% |
|
20 |
23 |
23 |
BBC News | BBC.CO.UK |
12,572,110 |
4.5% |
0.3% |
|
21 |
13 |
15 |
Discovery Channel | DISCOVERY.COM |
9,501,796 |
4.5% |
-1.0% |
|
22 |
21 |
13 |
TIME | TIME.COM |
6,980,029 |
4.3% |
-0.1% |
|
23 |
22 |
27 |
The Huffington Post (Aol) | HUFFINGTONPOST.COM |
38,557,478 |
4.1% |
-0.2% |
|
24 |
12 |
14 |
Break Media | BREAK.COM |
8,666,861 |
3.9% |
-2.0% |
|
25 |
29 |
29 |
New York Daily News | NYDAILYNEWS.COM |
10,818,073 |
3.7% |
0.0% |
|
26 |
24 |
26 |
National Geographic Society | NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM |
5,410,317 |
3.7% |
-0.3% |
|
27 |
35 |
6 |
The Guardian | GUARDIAN.CO.UK |
8,035,982 |
3.7% |
0.7% |
|
28 |
25 |
24 |
The Washington Post | WASHINGTONPOST.COM |
16,253,595 |
3.7% |
-0.3% |
|
29 |
26 |
25 |
New York Times | NYTIMES.COM |
25,415,028 |
3.7% |
-0.3% |
|
30 |
33 |
33 |
Nickelodeon (MTV Networks) | NICK.COM |
10,489,580 |
3.6% |
0.4% |
|
31 |
31 |
30 |
IMDB (Amazon.com) | IMDB.COM |
34,449,740 |
3.5% |
0.3% |
|
32 |
32 |
36 |
Bleacher Report | BLEACHERREPORT.COM |
10,126,821 |
3.4% |
0.2% |
|
33 |
27 |
28 |
CBS News | CBSNEWS.COM |
10,775,680 |
3.3% |
-0.5% |
|
34 |
30 |
32 |
FORBES | FORBES.COM |
11,733,587 |
3.3% |
-0.1% |
|
35 |
38 |
35 |
Los Angeles Times (Tribune) | LATIMES.COM |
14,005,725 |
3.2% |
0.5% |
|
36 |
36 |
38 |
Cartoon Network (Turner) | CARTOONNETWORK.COM |
9,270,980 |
3.0% |
0.1% |
|
37 |
34 |
34 |
Food Network (Scripps) | FOODNETWORK.COM |
13,629,536 |
2.6% |
-0.4% |
|
38 |
37 |
37 |
Wall Street Journal (News Corp) | WSJ.COM |
12,259,307 |
2.5% |
-0.2% |
|
39 |
41 |
40 |
FOX Sports (News Corp) | FOXSPORTS.COM |
17,869,805 |
2.0% |
0.0% |
|
40 |
40 |
39 |
Reuters | REUTERS.COM |
10,285,882 |
2.0% |
0.0% |
|
41 |
39 |
41 |
USA Today (Gannet) | USATODAY.COM |
16,604,354 |
2.0% |
0.0% |
|
42 |
42 |
43 |
WebMD | WEBMD.COM |
14,952,061 |
1.8% |
0.0% |
|
43 |
43 |
42 |
CNET (CBS Interactive) | CNET.COM |
22,956,989 |
1.8% |
0.0% |
|
44 |
44 |
44 |
Bloomberg | BLOOMBERG.COM |
6,373,252 |
1.7% |
0.0% |
|
45 |
46 |
45 |
everyday Health | EVERYDAYHEALTH.COM |
9,426,117 |
1.6% |
0.0% |
|
46 |
45 |
46 |
Businessweek (Bloomberg) | BUSINESSWEEK.COM |
6,490,385 |
1.6% |
-0.1% |
|
47 |
48 |
49 |
LIVESTRONG (Demand Media) | LIVESTRONG.COM |
14,265,338 |
1.2% |
0.1% |
|
48 |
49 |
48 |
About.com (NY Times) | ABOUT.COM |
51,103,478 |
1.1% |
0.1% |
|
49 |
47 |
47 |
ThePostGame (Yahoo) | THEPOSTGAME.COM |
7,594,651 |
1.1% |
0.0% |
|
50 |
50 |
50 |
Mayo Clinic | MAYOCLINIC.COM |
10,112,971 |
0.9% |
0.0% |
|
51 |
51 |
51 |
eHow (Demand Media) | EHOW.COM |
50,306,160 |
0.8% |
0.1% |