HuffPuffers get a clue

HuffPuff is the collective name for the HuffingtonPost bloggers, the serfs, the galley slaves, feeling out in the cold after the HuffPost/AOL merger.

Well, somebody higher up the blogging food chain than I says the same thing, only with detailed numbers.

Five Thirty Eight blogger Nate Silver says, especially with the merger: You just aren't being viewed.

Specifically:

Another reason, perhaps, that the “slave ship” allegation sometimes sticks to The Huffington Post is because there is a discrepancy between the “250 million unique visitors” that Ms. Huffington pitches her bloggers on , and the much, much smaller number who have any realistic chance of encountering, yet alone reading, any given post. Their median blog post, by our estimate, gets only about 550 page views. That equates to about 1 in every 450,000 of the unique visitors that Ms. Huffington says AOL and The Huffington Post will have each month once they combine forces.

Thanks, Nate, for putting pen to paper and calculating some numbers.

Nate goes on to note that there's plenty of unpaid bloggers at Kos, etc.

So, HuffPuffers, again, if you don't like being unpaid while contributing, in at least a marginal way, to HuffPost SEO hits, then ...

Start your own freaking blog!