Is Twitter Feeding the NYT?

On Monday, a small corner of the Internet exploded with reports that Martin Nisenholtz, Senior Vice-President of digital operations at The New York Times Co., had credited Twitter with 10 percent of NYTimes.com traffic. That would be roughly 2.8 million people redirected from the micro-blogging website to NYTimes.com every month. 

Fortunately, at least one blogger did his homework, noting that NYT spokeswoman Diane McNulty would confirm only that: “At its current growth rate, Twitter is, or will soon move into, the top 10 in terms of referrals to NYTimes.com.” To those not versed in Google Analytics, that means Twitter probably brings in a much smaller piece of the Gray Lady's pie than speculated. But it's growing! And, importantly, skewing toward that oh-so-elusive younger audience the NYT and other papers have been chasing.

The Times seems to be throwing its weight behind the Twitter phenomenon. @nytimes has nearly 2 million followers, which is nothing to sneeze at even if Twitter does slough half of its new users, and given that plenty of profiles are inactive. But not every Twitter profile in the Times-iverse was created equal: Maureen Dowd's @NYTimesDowd has a meager 1,500 followers, compared to Nicholas Kristof's @nytimeskristof, which has more than 600,000. 

Not an @nytimes follower? May I humbly suggest @sewell_chan, the powerhouse behind the paper's City Room blog. Chan's mere 3,000 followers and relative obscurity in the world of the Times belies a feed full of pointed questions and tantalizing tidbits.

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