Mr. X writes five to six times a week on dead wood parchment. Over 320 000 people read his paper on weekdays and over 415 000 on weekends.
He has been writing for over 30 years and has won numerous awards for his outstanding reporting and commentary. They read X’s words in Official Ottawa and on Bay St. He is at the top of his game.
Mr. X hates the blogosphere, claiming it epitomizes the “me, myself and I” journalism type that is “destroying commentary and reporting.” He eschews appearances on other media preferring the comfort and one way dialogue afforded to those whose soap box is made of dead trees. Every couple of years he writes a book.
His audience, though interested in his writings, is of an older demographic (primarily late boomers and up) and are not habitual sharers.
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Mr. Y publishes content that he creates on his blog around 10 times a week. Some of it is visual, some is video, some plain old words. A true digital native, he is a habitual sharer in the truest sense. As a result of the culture of the web his content is also shared by those he helps. It travels far and wide.
Mr. Y has about 90 000 subscribers to his blog. CMO’s of Fortune 100’s number among these. He is at the top of his game.
Y plays in lots of media, both new and old. Like Mr. X he has written books on dead trees and done well. However, Mr. Y also has a number of other web projects that have strong followings. His audience is young and old and replete with up and comers.
When Y produces content his personality shines through, unlike our pal Mr. X. Love him or hate him, his audience understands that there is a real human behind the content – in fact they can’t miss it. Though he is a busy guy Mr. Y engages in lots of back and forth with his audience, responding to tweets, blog comments etc. This further humanizes him in the minds of his audience but also makes the dialogue rich and alive.
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Given the above descriptions of real humans (ask me who they are and I will tell you), is PRnewser’s finding that 80% of journalists say that bloggers are “important opinion shapers” really any surprise?