Jeff Bercovici of Conde Nast Portfolio writes Friday about how The Wall Street Journal‘s web site has continued to increase its readers despite not dropping its pay wall.
Bercovici writes, “According to internal numbers, WSJ.com hosted 15 million unique visitors in March, a 175 percent increase over March 2007, says Alan Murray, executive editor of the Wall Street Journal Online. Page views came in at around 165 million, up 75 percent year-over-year.
“‘I don’t know of any news site that’s growing at that speed,’ he says. ‘I don’t think this has gotten much attention.’
“As is common, Nielsen Netratings came up with a somewhat different set of measurements. Nielsen’s March numbers aren’t out yet, but it reported 6 million uniques visiting WSJ.com in February of this year, versus 3.4 million in the year-ago period.
“‘You don’t want to tie yourself too specifically to any one number, but the trend is clear,’ says Murray. ‘We are rapidly growing our readership.'”
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