BlogAds, the company that puts ads onto blogs, shows the number of weekly ad impressions for each "hive". The statistics are interesting, if not educational:
The Gossip blogs hive, with 93 blogs, has the most with 66,377,180 impressions. In fact, the top three hives are all gossip/entertainment-related with Hollywood blogs (108) at 52,668,824 and TV blogs (30) at 29,774,435 (a million impressions per week per blog is not shaby).
The ranking non-entertainment hive is Gay blogs (62), at 21,851,743 (a nice demographic to target).
Next comes Liberal blogs (117) at 20,588,252. It's another three places to Conservative blogs (162) at 7,373,020. Are liberals really three times more likely to read blogs, are they merely more likely to advertise using BlogAds, or is this just another attempt by the liberal media to smear conservatives by painting them as illiterate knuckle-draggers who get their opinions shouted at them by the neolithic cretins on Fox News?
Heading further down the list, we find Economics blogs (14) at 405,459 impressions. Looking at some of the blogs in this hive, I suspect that most of the impressions are in one or two blogs. I'm going to add The Oil Drum (http://www.theoildrum.com/) to my daily reading list for a while.
Gun blogs (11) at 290,671 beat out Oregon Progressives at (13) at 228,990. These, perhaps to the surprise of no one, beat out Evangelical blogs (17) at 169,396 and Christian Moms (17) at 165,797. The Libertarians (7) come in at only 80,201.
What's even more surprising is the cost per impression:
Gay blogs are a steal at $0.17 per thousand impressions. This is a highly favorable demographic, being on average wealthier and better educated than the typical breeder. I suspect that the rates are so cheap because of companies afraid to be associated with the gay market, but if I were selling something, I know where I'd be putting my money.
The gossip and entertainment blogs follow the gays in close order on cost per impression. In this case, I tend to agree with the pricing, as the audience for these blogs are probably not as affluent.
Liberals are still on the cheap side at $1.11 per thousand. Strangely enough, Law blogs are at $1.25. I guess that lawyers don't click on ads unless they're able to bill for the time.
The conservatives just slip in above the median at $1.78 per thousand, followed by evangelicals at $2.15 and Science blogs at $2.40. Jewish blogs are $5.14, which would make for the beginnings of a great joke, if not for the fact that Christian blogs are the third most expensive at $7.42. I suspect that what makes these blogs so valuable is the fact that the readers will believe anything that they read.
And the two most expensive hives? Wine blogs at $8.53 and our friends, the Oregon Progressives at a whopping $45.10 per thousand impressions. In the interest of science, I did some more homework and found out that the Or-Pro's price is artificially inflated by a single web page that wants $9,999 for someone to become the sole sponsor.
All-in-all, very curious. As you'll note, BS remains blissfully ad-free.
