Political Analysis vs. Tech Business in the Real World, or, Why Ezra Klein Might Not Conquer the World

Interesting and news-to-me numbers from Nicholas Carlson
at Business Insider with some
insight into why the Washington Post was willing to
make what seemed to the political pundit class such an obvious
mistake as allowing the Brilliant Young Star ® Ezra Klein
leave them for other internet pastures.

Turns out that the same company, Vox Media, that poached Klein
and his Wonkblog did the same successfully a few years back with
the Engadget blog, on tech business and culture, and did well with
it under new umbrella of The Verge.

But those two worlds of journalism are way more different than I
knew, proving that the world (healthily) is more interested in tech
business than they are in Washington brouhahas and Bigthink:

Unlike Engadget, Wonkblog is tiny.

….Wonkblog averages 4 million pageviews per
month.

By comparison, when Vox raided Engadget, Engadget was
huge. In December 2010, Engadget had more than 12 million
unique visitors and more than 200 million pageviews……

With various reasonable guesses, Carlson concludes
that:

….a safe estimate for Wonkblog 2.0 is that it will
generate $500,000 in annual revenues for Vox in its first few
years. {But] [f]or the bottom line figure, Bankoff
will probably need red ink. Klein already has 8 staffers and
he wants to hire 22 more. Each staffer will probably cost at least
$100,000 in salary and benefits. 

And getting fresh traffic, even with old stars, isn’t that
sure a thing:

….three years after…Vox raided Engadget, The Verge is
now up to 10 million unique visitors per month – about 83% the size
of Engadget back then.

Vox is, of course, thrilled to have a site that is 83% the size
of Engadget in 2010. 

But, in 2016, will it be thrilled to have a site that 83% the
size of Wonkblog in 2014?