There are a very few websites that technology and media executives turn to for information. They are probably the same ones that Web 2.0 institutional investors and the M&A types track. Ditto all the big-time geeks and gear heads like Sun’s CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Fake Steve Jobs. Add the VC firms to that list.
The king of these sites is TechCrunch. It has an astonishing amount of content, most of which it gets before any of its competition. It is the only tech and internet news site or blog in the top 1,000 websites on the Alexa list. For the last week, it ranked 751.
The list also includes sites that are fairly hard news operations like WebProNews (Alexa: 9,555) and ZDNet (Alexa: 1,608), part of CNET. Some of the properties lean more in the direction of gossip. These would include Gawker (Alexa: 5,796), which is followed heavily buy old and new media types, and ValleyWag (Alexa:5,638).
Other highly regarded blogs in the industry are GigaOM (Alexa: 8,859), VentureBeat (Alexa:17,521), and PaidContent.org (Alexa:15,433).
It’s a tough racket. Most of these websites are chasing the same news, speculation, and gossip. Die-hards following the industry may check most of these sites several times a day. Standing out is not easy.These sites often link to each other to get broader coverage.
Most of the properties are over a year old, and some have been around two or three years. They have been joined recently by a new site which has only been in business about three months–Silicon Alley Insider (Alexa:11,896). The site has made a big audience move very quickly, as the Alexa one-week average traffic figure shows.
Each of these sites has a unique perspective. At Alley Insider, it is probably the focus on East Coast tech, media, and venture activity. And, of greater appeal, the site comes at its coverage the way that Wall St. would. Not surprising, since the writers are a former securities analyst and journalists from Forbes. The site rips apart companies based on valuation. Very few other places cover the industry that way.
Alley Insider has made a very big move in 90 days. It has already passed industry standards like Paid Content and VentureBeat. And, it looks like its audience is likely to keep moving up.
Douglas A. McIntyre
24/7 Wall St. runs stories from Alley Insider from time to time.
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