Online Newspaper Readership Continues to Rise

Newspaper publishers must be sighing with relief if not jumping with joy, as they continue to see increasing online readership of the news according to data compiled from the Newspaper Association of America's Newspaper Audience Database (NAdbase).  Nielsen/Net Ratings research shows that year over year there was a 15% increase in unique visitors to newspaper sites.  Even better news for the industry is Scarborough research data showing that there was an increase in key demographic segments favored by some advertisers with the 25 - 34 year old segment increasing 13.7% and the 18 - 24 year old segment seeing an increase of 9.2%.   The research also found that combined between these two segments 65.8% read a newspaper during the week.

What the report doesn't address is the growing trend of online newspapers to use Web 2.0 tools to enhance their products.  Leading papers are utilizing RSS, including video and audio podcasts, photo sharing, blogs, improved word of mouth marketing features and enhanced reader comment sections.

UPDATE
Proving that a web 2.0 community centric strategy works, Media Post reports that Nielsen Net Ratings research shows that USAToday.com has seen a 380% increase in visitor registrations and a 21% increase in unique visitors since their site re-design launch in February.