The midge fly (depicted here) has one of the shortest life spans in the animal kingdom, about 5-7 days in hotter climes. That seems long compared to the average online news item, which maxes out around 36 hours according to a recent study by a team of scientists in the United States and Hungary.
Nature.com has coverage of the study, which could help news agencies determine the overall impact of their stories, both individually and in aggregate.
In the past it’s been difficult to monitor users’ precise reading habits. However, by logging which stories they read and when, sites will be able to automatically push out the content that readers want most.
Not surprisingly, stories get the most visits on the day that they’re posted. The traffic falls off rapidly after that. After three days, most people who are ever going to read the item have already done so. In fact, the average user sees only about half the items before they disappear from a portal’s main page, actually visiting and reading only about 7% of all articles.
These findings are in accordance with our own pageview stats, and make sense when you figure that only the most dedicated readers (either to the site or their research thereof) are willing to comb through past articles to get at what they want. This is also where it may make sense to charge for content, as does The Onion Premium, where folks have to fork over $30 bucks a year for unlimited access to love columist Smoove B.
