I read some reports that say that web traffic to financial sites is on a decline. Does anyone here know more about this topic? In addition, if there is less traffic, does it mean that there is less interest in financial information or that the web as a medium of communication is on decline?
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Economics of Web Traffic
- Thread starter tradingjournals
- Start date
I could give a comprehensive answer to your Q that touches on all points, but I'll stick to a short and concise one for now.
With the exception of specialized news/data services that focus on a particular market/topic, general news nowadays is no longer unique. Widespread access to the internet has made news a commodity. When one can find a news story linked all over the web, and then expounded upon by bloggers and other commentators, it's no surprise that online financial publications would see their traffic fall. On the web, traffic is the name of the game. If people can get their news on their favorite blogs, they don't need to visit the original content producers any longer.
I guess you could say it's not that people realize that financial news is worthless (which doesn't make it less useless, IMO), it's that the web has produced a shift from a monopoly on news by original content producers to a more distributed network by way of linking. You can't link a newspaper, but you can have unlimited links to an online news article without anyone ever having to visit the original news content provider.
With the exception of specialized news/data services that focus on a particular market/topic, general news nowadays is no longer unique. Widespread access to the internet has made news a commodity. When one can find a news story linked all over the web, and then expounded upon by bloggers and other commentators, it's no surprise that online financial publications would see their traffic fall. On the web, traffic is the name of the game. If people can get their news on their favorite blogs, they don't need to visit the original content producers any longer.
I guess you could say it's not that people realize that financial news is worthless (which doesn't make it less useless, IMO), it's that the web has produced a shift from a monopoly on news by original content producers to a more distributed network by way of linking. You can't link a newspaper, but you can have unlimited links to an online news article without anyone ever having to visit the original news content provider.
Quote from gastropod:
The flash crash drove a lot of retail/human investors out of the market.
There is true to this statement. It did a lot of damage. It was like a terrorist act to scare people away from the markets. They are doing very little to reassure investors this won't happen again.
I estimate that 50% of the decline is due to that and the other 50% due to the fact that people have no money to invest in the face of rising energy and food prices.