Business news blogs see dramatic increase with Dow drop

Barry Ritholtz writes on his Big Picture blog that the well-known financial and business blogs saw a dramatic increase in readers and page hits in the past 48 hours with the big fluctuations in the Dow Jones industrial average.

Ritholtz wrote, “As far as the MSM is concerned, there are numerous ways to intepret this. On the one hand, many readers rely on blogs as a filter for the MSM: I don’t buy into the argument that blogs make the media redundant; My sense is that many readers think: Show me what I need to see, and save me the time of sifting thru 100s of other sources. A post like this morn’s Around the World in 24 Hours is just that sort of overview. For many news consumers, media is important, with blogs acting as a filter/redirector.  Â

“Yet at the same time, most of the generation born after the 1987 crash doesn’t like to get ink on their hands. They get nearly all of their news from the web, and almost never touch a physical paper.

“I don’t reach any major conclusions on this, other than noting the MSM needs to stay interactive to remain relevant to its future consumers. Media is clearly in a period of transition, and how they handle it will determine how relevant — and profitable — they will be in the future . . . ” Â

Read more here.