Business Insider has overtaken Mashable in unique visitors according to Compete. It seemed noteworthy when competing blog Mashable overtook TechCrunch as the more popular tech blog, and now Business Insider (whose tech section is technically Silicon Alley Insider) appears to be doing even better than Mashable.
Of course, there are plenty of factors that could be contributing here. For one, Business Insider is pushing out a ton of articles these days, and on a variety of topics. It’s not all tech, or even all business at this point. It’s pretty much become an all-purpose news source, leaving the name “Business Insider” a little misleading. That’s not to say they don’t cover business well, but visit the site, and you’ll find sections on Tech, Media, Sports, Lifestyle, Politics, Travel, Etc. The content will still often have a business angle, but not always.
This kind of branching out into other content areas by previously niche publications has drawn some criticism. In fact, a TechCrunch writer recently blasted Mashable for this kind of thing (which I defended here). Interestingly enough, Business Insider has also been known to syndicate articles from other sources, including TechCrunch itself.
Business Insider puts out a ton of content. They seem to be going for almost a Huffington Post-type thing. In terms of unique visitors, it seems to be playing out well for them so far.
It’s worth noting that Compete’s data is all U.S. and has been subject to its own share of criticism. Last week, we ran a piece, in which Compete’s Damian Roskill, Managing Director of Marketing, compared Compete data and Google Analytics data to Apples and Oranges.
