By: Dave Astor Salon.com is getting many new subscribers after its URL was listed in today's "Doonesbury" comic.
"We had one of our best days in recent memory yesterday, but we've already eclipsed that this morning at 9:30 Pacific time," said Patrick Hurley, senior vice president of business operations. The San Francisco-based executive told E&P that Salon.com's subscriber list will probably rise from about 82,000 to at least 83,000 by the end of today.
Each "Doonesbury" strip this week is listing URLs offering unexpected criticism of President Bush and his policies. Today's comic sent readers to an article on Salon.com by Copley News Service columnist Doug Bandow titled "Why conservatives must not vote for Bush."
Accompanying the piece was an editor's note welcoming "Doonesbury" readers to Salon.com. The note said Salon.com usually requires people to watch an ad or join the site to see a complete article, "but we thought this story was just too important so we're giving you full access without further ado." Then it offered people the chance to subscribe to Salon.com at a 50% discount.
Hurley said 74% of today's new signups so far were from "Doonesbury" readers.
How much extra traffic did Salon.com get today? "We're tracking about 25 to 30% higher than yesterday in number of visitors," replied Hurley, adding that the increase would probably be even larger if accessing the site today wasn't a slower process because of the traffic surge.
On Tuesday, Garry Trudeau listed a Poynter.org URL in his comic. That sent readers to the now-famous e-mail by Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi about how dangerous things are in Iraq. On Monday, "Doonesbury" listed the URL of a support-Kerry commentary by the lifelong Republican son of President Eisenhower. That piece appeared on the Web site of The Union Leader in Manchester, N.H.
The Union Leader's site crashed from all the "Doonesbury"-generated traffic. After that, Universal Press Syndicate gave other sites advance notice. "We were prepared," Hurley said of Salon.com. "There was no crashing of servers here."
"Doonesbury" runs in about 1,400 newspapers.
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