Back in June 2009, I somewhat rashly suggested that newspapers should turn off their RSS feeds as no one was using them (I then recanted slightly). Fortunately this means I have the data for back then on the number of people using Google Reader to subscribe to the three most popular RSS feeds for each UK newspaper.

So here's a table that compares the number of subscribers in Google Reader to each paper's most popular RSS feed 18 months ago and today - the overall fall is 68%.

The papers with large numbers of subscribers have seen significant drop offs. A couple have seen an increase (but from a very low base).

Some caveats:

• The search function in Google Reader can be a bit flaky sometimes, but I think I've found the top feeds in each case (although the feed with the most subscribers isn't always the same now as it was then).
• The number of people using Google Reader will have changed in the intervening 18 months - but I'm not aware of any figures which show that its market share has drastically fallen.
• The Times's numbers have obviously been affected by it going behind a paywall.

If you want to explore the data from June 2009, feel free. If you have any time, maybe you could work out the top three feeds now and compare them?

The debate was started by this post on whether RSS is dying (with a lively debate on Hacker News). TechCrunch reached the same conclusion separately. The truth is probably closest to this thoughtful follow up which distinguishes RSS as a mainstream browser-based user-facing service from a behind-the-scenes format. < Update I think that. I'm not saying RSS is dead. Don't flame me!

There's no right score - it depends on the audience, of course. These are ordered by basic score - the order's fairly surprising (though that may say more about Google's scores ...)

Sun

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic

Sun

FT

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

FT

Guardian

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Guardian

Daily Mail

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Daily Mail

Mirror

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic

Mirror

Times

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

The Times

Express

Overall reading level according to Google: Basic (which makes little sense given the graph ...)

Express

Telegraph

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Telegraph

Independent

Overall reading level according to Google: Intermediate

Independent

So if you ever want to know what a London SEO consultant does. It's this.

Twitter as a referrer

Figures for the UK

Trying my luck somewhat, I asked the three largest UK newspaper sites (Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian) what their figures were.

• For the Mail, under 0.5% of their referrer traffic is from Twitter.
• For the Telegraph, 0.5% of global traffic and 0.25% of UK traffic currently comes from Twitter.
• For the Guardian, 0.4% of their page impressions in February came from Twitter.

Interpreting these figures

These figures are slightly lower than in the US (but that is where Twitter began) but will have grown strongly over the last 12 months from data I've seen for another newspaper site. I'm sure, as with the US, this puts Twitter in or near the top 10 referrers.

How many people

To put these into perspective, these newspaper sites get around 2 million unique users a day, so 0.5% is 10,000 visitors a day. While not to be sneezed at, it shows that search, news aggregators and direct traffic (RSS/bookmarks) are still more important than Twitter (whatever those of us on Twitter might think).

Twitter.com vs Twitter clients

But please bear in mind that interpreting Twitter traffic is notoriously hard - you can measure traffic that comes from twitter.com (although not always if it's using a URL shortener that frames the target page). Measuring traffic from other desktop clients (tweetdeck etc) is much harder.

@dirktherabbit pointed out recently that less than 20% of people access Twitter through the web. Danny Sullivan had a good rant that addressed many of the problems with people who release Twitter statistics (with a shorter summary of that here).

Looking at the stats for my own blog (comparing direct traffic (which is how Google Analytics records Twitter client traffic) to twitter.com referrals on days when there is a spike in traffic due to some Twitter-driven lynch mob), between 2 and 4 times as much traffic comes from desktop clients as twitter.com.

Thank yous

Thanks to James Bromley, Julian Sambles and Martin Belam for taking the time and being willing to share this data. If you'd like to follow some of their papers' Twitter feeds, try these links:

• The Daily Mail has a main headline Twitter feed at @mailonline. The easiest way to find its other feeds currently is to see who @DMAILsports is following.
• The Telegraph has a list of all Telegraph Twitter feeds. There is also a Twitter list of all these accounts, plus one of all Telegraph journalists on Twitter.
• The Guardian also has a list of the official Guardian Twitter accounts.

Oh, and you could also check out my previous posts on newspapers on twitter.

Today, it tweeted:

The PCC has negotiated this page 2 and online Daily Telegraph clarification after a complaint from Graham Allen MP http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7207124/Graham-Allen-MP.html

I asked whether this clarification was linked to, and it said:

Yes, there's a link to the clarification on the Telegraph's news homepage: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

Oddly, if you search for Graham Allen MP on the Telegraph site, the clarification isn't in the results (this seems a fairly major omission to me - surely these things should appear in the search results. Although poor Mr Allen also gets a "Did you mean Graham Alleyn MP"!) .

But there is indeed a link - a link that says "Graham Allen MP" (no use of the word clarification). I've ringed it in red to help you find it ...

So not all that prominent then ...

• Despite the superinjunction, you could find out about the story on Twitter and Google easily enough - both raised the profile of Terry's affair via the trends list in Twitter's case and the Twitter search box in Google's.
• No one seemed to understand the difference between an injunction and a superinjunction - the former banned reporting of JT's conduct, the latter banned revealing there was an injunction. They weren't necessarily both overturned, but there was a widespread assumption you could say what you liked about Terry once the superinjunction was overturned. This wasn't necessarily the case ...
• The Mail and Telegraph seemed to flout the terms of the superinjunction - as did the Press Gazette which decided if wasn't bound as it hadn't seen a copy. This seemed risky behaviour legally - which makes me wonder if the papers were looking for a weak case to try to discredit superinjunctions.
• This superinjunction should never have been granted. What was the original judge thinking?

Google revealed the story via its Twitter search box

Google and Twitter ignored the superinjunction

The superinjunction was overturned at about 1pm or 2pm on Friday. Needless to say, the papers had a field day today (Saturday).

But if you wanted to find out the story on Friday, it was relatively simple to do so. I typed John Terry's name into Google on Friday at about 11.15am - long before the injunction was lifted - and saw the screenshot, above.

Yes, the Google's twitter search box was happily showing people tweeting about John Terry and Wayne Bridge (and there were tweets showing giving full details of the affair). Later that day, they removed the twitter search results - whether this was algorithmic or for legal reasons, I don't know. But type both those names into Google or Twitter search, and it was easy to find the full story.

And by Friday lunchtime, both John Terry and Wayne Bridge were trending topics on Twitter, raising the profile of the issue. If you clicked on either to see what was being tweeted, you'd have found out about the affair instantly.

Shortly after, a judge ruled there were no grounds for the injunction, super or otherwise.

Guardian links to Twitter search for John Terry

As an aside, I noticed that the Guardian, in its coverage of the superinjunction, even included a link in one of its pieces to a Twitter search on John Terry.

They've removed it now (well, I can't find it anyway and probably for the best. You should either have the balls to run the full story or not. I don't think publishing a link to a twitter search is a reasonable half way house.)

Confusion still reigned

Once news that the super injunction had been lifted, no one knew (or perhaps cared) where they legally stood on Friday afternoon (as I've pointed out before about reporting restrictions).

It was reported that the superinjunction was lifted - but not whether there was a separate injunction relating to the facts of the case (ie could you report that JT had obtained an injunction, but not say why?).

Despite this, everyone went ahead and shouted about it all over the internet. If there was a separate injunction, it was finished.

You can see the confusion in the comments on this Guardian story from yesterday afternoon

Seastorm: I've no interest in gossiping about EBJT, but I am a little confused....is the paper concerned now allowed to go ahead and publish the allegations?

Busfield (replying to seastorm): The judgement means that we can now report that there was an injunction. The judge then says that the newspaper concerned will have to make its own assessment of the risks involved in publishing whatever the allegations may be, which will involve considerations of the laws relating to privacy and defamation.

Gooner UK (replying to seastorm): Nope, the removal of the superinjunction means that newspapers are allowed to publish the fact that an injunction is in place, and name the parties involved, but they are still not allowed to publish the subject matter itself.

The injunction still stands, it's just that we now know an injunction is in place. A superinjunction is so damaging because it means we (the public) are deliberately kept in the dark as to the very existence of an injunction.

And bear in mind that an injunction is in theory an act of last resort anyway. A superinjunction adds another level to that, which can be very dangerous in terms of press freedom.

Busfield (replying to Gooner UK): my understanding, and I am not a lawyer but I have spent much of the day talking to one, is that both the super and the injunction have gone. It is up to the paper concerned to decide whether it can publish its story without breaking the laws of defamation and relating to privacy.

The background: two papers ignore the injunction

It's also interesting that two newspapers decide to ignore, or sail very close to the wind with regards to, the superinjunction - ie they ran stories that appeared to be in breach of it.

Mail reports injunction's existence

As the Press Gazette reported yesterday morning (ie before the superinjunction was lifted):

A new “super-injunction” has been used by a Premier League footballer to stop national newspapers reporting his alleged marital infidelity.

The Daily Mail identifies the man only as a married England international.

The Daily Mail today reports, in apparent defiance of the order: "So draconian is Mr Justice Tugendhat’s order that even its existence is supposed to be a secret."

(It's interesting that the Press Gazette felt able to run the story about the existence of the superinjnction stating "Press Gazette has not been served with the injunction." - I would have thought that this was also sailing close to the wind. It knew there was a super injunction, and I'm surprised its lawyers didn't make an attempt to find out the full details.)

The Mail's piece had a couple of nods and winks to Terry's role:

A married England international footballer was granted a sweeping injunction to prevent publication of his affair with the girlfriend of a team-mate ... It could be anyone from the captain of the top team in the land ..."

What, like the captain of England, you mean?

As does the Telegraph

On top of this, the Telegraph had run a piece, too, according to the Guardian:

Yesterday The Daily Telegraph technically breached the "super" part of the superinjunction by reporting that the courts were hiding the identity of a footballer and allegations about his private life. (This piece appeared in print but is no longer online).

Maybe since the Trafigura injunction, newspapers have been looking for a way to kill off superinjunctions. If they wanted a weak super injunction to pick on as a way to discredit them, this seemed a prime example.

Whatever their reasons, nothing seems likely to happen to the Mail and the Telegraph for breaching or nearly breaching this one - unlike in the Trafigura case, it seems unlikely John Terry is going to successfully sue anyone over this issue.

Conclusion

The Mail sums it up well:

In a scathing ruling, the judge made it clear he suspected Terry was more afraid of losing the commercial deals than anything else.

He said the footballer appeared to have brought his High Court action in a desperate move to protect his earnings - rather than the woman with whom he had been conducting his affair.

(And given this, it's hard to see how the superinjunction was ever granted.)

There are legitimate reasons for injunctions and even superinjunctions.

But judges need to think very carefully before granting them. And the British courts and the right to privacy should not be used to protect the commercial interests of a man "crowned father of the year" who at the same time had cheated on his wife with his team mate's partner (and that's only half the story, according to the internet).

• July to August growth: 17%
• August to September growth: 17%
• September to October growth: 13.1%.
• October to November growth: 8.3%
• November to December growth: 6.6%

The detail

These accounts had 1,801,044 followers on November 2nd (ignoring one FT account that has been shut). On December 2nd they had 1,919,770 followers in total.

Of the 118,726 increase, 76,812 or 65% was for the @guardiantech account (which benefits from being on Twitter's suggested user list).

As ever, the full spreadsheet is here or you can see the iframe below.

• July to August growth: 17%
• August to September growth: 17%
• September to October growth: 13.1%.
• October to November growth: 8.3%

The detail

These 130 accounts had 1,801,811 followers on November 2nd, up by 137,568 from 1,664,243 on October 1. Of that increase, 95,007 (or 69%) was for the @guardiantech account (which benefits from being on Twitter's suggested user list).

(NB the Telegraph seems to have deleted its badly spelled @TelegraphScienc account, so I've restated October's figures to be for 130 accounts, rather than the 131 I used to track).

The biggest mover was @MirrorFootball, up 11 places to 81st (from 455 to 809 followers), suggesting the Mirror is finally making some use of Twitter (most of its other accounts are near the bottom - and only appear to have moved up a place due to the demise of the Telegraph's Science account).

As ever, the full spreadsheet is here or you can see the iframe below.

Fast forward to September and the story is the same as earlier in the year - Guardian 1st, Telegraph 2nd and Mail 3rd. So what changed from June to September? To find out, I've compared the ABCe figures for UK and foreign visitors in June and September. The difference between the Guardian's performance and that of the Telegraph and Mail is revealing.

Guardian: strong growth here and abroad

Table: September unique visitors (millions) and percentage change since June

Analysis

The Guardian has seen significant growth in the UK AND abroad.

Its total visitor numbers grew 14% from June to September (up from 29m to 33m). There was a 17% increase in UK visitors and a 12% increase in visitors from abroad. This makes it the most popular online newspaper in the UK by some way (it's 2.4m ahead of the Mail in second place).

UK visitors accounted for 36% of the total in September (barely changed from 35% in June).

Telegraph: overseas growth only

Table: September unique visitors, percentage change since June

Analysis

The Telegraph has also seen a 14% increase in total visitors from June (27.2m) to September (31m).

However, the geographical breakdown is revealing - its UK unique visitor numbers are down 1% from June to August but its overseas visitors are up 22% (from 18m to 21.9m). It's now the most visited UK newspaper abroad - but only the 3rd most visited inside the UK.

As a result, the proportion of its visitors that comes from the UK has fallen from 34% to 29% - the lowest of any UK newspaper (the Mail held this honour back in June).

The Telegraph saw the biggest increase in overseas visitors of any newspaper - but because its UK traffic fell, the Guardian beat it into 2nd place.

Mail: UK growth only

Table: September unique visitors, percentage change since June

Analysis

The Mail's stood fairly still between June and September - it had 30m visitors last month, up just 2% on three months ago. But its story is the reverse of the Telegraph's.

The Mail saw strong UK growth - up 14% to 9.5m visitors in three months. Overseas visitors, however, fell by 2% to 20.6m. As a result, it now gets 32% of its visitors from the UK (up from 28% in June).

It got overtaken by the Guardian because it hasn't been able to match and sustain its overseas growth.

And the rest ...

As for the others:

• The Sun is down to 23m visitors in September, an 8% fall over 3 months. A 15% collapse in overseas visitors couldn't make up for a 3% increase in UK users.
• The Times is a story of decline - 13% down overall, with a 10% fall in the UK and a 14% fall from overseas.
• The same is true of the Mirror (down 5% overall) and the Independent (down 6% overall) but to a lesser extent.

This table has all the stats. If you can't see the iframe, you can see the full spreadsheet here.

The Express doesn't take part in the ABCes. The FT does only some months.

The rate of growth has slowed, however. This is a monthly increase of 13.1%, compared with 17% from August 1 to September 1, and also from July 1 to August 1.

What's more, 151,555 of the increase (or 78% of the total) is down to just one account - that of @guardiantech (which owes its popularity to its place on the Twitter Suggested User List). Indeed, of the 131 accounts I'm tracking, 51 have fewer followers than me! You can see the full table here, or below.

So, how are the papers covering the news that, as the BBC news site puts it in its 3rd most important story:

• "Cancer jab 'unlikely' death cause: A girl who died shortly after being given a cervical cancer vaccine had a 'serious underlying medical condition', an NHS Trust says"?

This list is in order of how irresponsible I judged them yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the worst offenders are still whipping up hysteria.

Let's be clear. The only reason parents are worried, boycotting the vaccine, and demanding suspensions of the vaccination program is because the media whipped up a storm with no evidence whatsoever.

Mail Online

Still scaremongering and putting lives at risk

The Mail is leading its website with "Health Trust claims cervical cancer jab girl could have been killed by 'underlying health condition'". But note the two caveats - claims and could. Also, it is still linking her death with the jab in the headline.

Immediately under this headline is a link to another story that says "Dr Richard Halvorsen: I'm not opposed to jabs but there are serious worries". There aren't - he's a scaremonger too.

Express

Still scaremongering and putting lives at risk

Half way down the home page we have "Parents' revolt after girl dies in cancer jab horror".

The story does concede half way down that "it was most unlikely that the HPV vaccination was the cause of death". This doesn't quite tie in with cancer jab horror, does it? And they are only revolting because you, and the other papers, misled them.

The Mirror

Backtracked in a low-profile way

This led its front page with 'Jab death' yesterday. No sign of a follow up on the home page, although the main news page does lead with "Cervical cancer vaccine 'unlikely' to have killed girl".

Independent

Backtracked but published new misleading Q&A page

Three quarters of the way down the home page is "Cancer jab girl 'had health problem'".

It has another article on questions around the vaccine which asks "Haven't there been thousands of side effects".

The answer of "Yes. There have also been reports of deaths" is wholly misleading as it concedes that none of these deaths show any link to the vaccine.

And the 'reports' are just part of the monitoring of things that occur at around the same time. There are no reports which show that the vaccine is linked to any deaths.

The Sun

Explicit about no link

The home page has no coverage, but the main news page has a large headline near the top that says "Natalie wasn't killed by vaccine". This story is also featured in the top stories box.

Times

Explicit about no link

The headline near the top of the home page is "Cancer jab 'was not to blame for girl's death'". The comments are frightening though ...

Guardian

Fairly explicit about no link

Headline in the more news section says "Cervical cancer jab 'unlikely' to blame for death".

I have to ask, however, what the hell this is. Part of the Comment is free section, but highlighted high up on the Guardian's main cervical cancer page, it says "I had no truck with MMR fears, but the death of a schoolgirl given the HPV vaccine makes me hesitate".

Don't hesitate - don't contribute to encouraging others hesitating. Not having this vaccine puts your daughter's life at risk.

Telegraph

Explicit about no link

I had the Telegraph down as the least irresponsible coverage yesterday. Today, however, their 2nd most important story is "Cervical cancer vaccinations suspended" with "Cancer jab unlikely to have caused girl's death" in a much smaller font.