If current trends continue, the Free Patriotic Movement’s website will be the champion of all websites in Lebanon very soon.
When I first started blogging right after Hariri was killed, I used to have a daily chart that indicated the different rankings of different websites in Lebanon. It was a nice feature, but it took too much space. This is why I reserved it for events that significantly change those rankings. One such event was the release of the Mehlis report: it propelled the ranking of the FPM’s website to the extend that it toppled that old beacon of March 14: Naharnet.
There are two reasons why the FPM’s website is doing so well.
The first one is reliance:
Michel Aoun heads a party with a significant following in Lebanon (and outside of Lebanon), but unlike other parties, he has no private newspapers and no private Satellite TV stations. At the same time, his exile in Paris required that he found a cost-effective means for communicating with his base.
Unlike in any other Party, the FPM’s website is integral to the party’s operations; while others use theirs (if any) as online brochures, the FPM uses it to communicate, to organize rallies, to publish pieces by its intellectuals, and lately, to gather membership applications.
Michel Aoun is the only Lebanese politician who has an internet address on his podium whenever he makes speeches or organizes press conferences.
The other reason why the FPM’s website is doing well is political. Soon Lebanon will have a new President, and whether some people like it or not, Michel Aoun is the strongest candidate. People are regularly frequenting his website for the latest on his “presidential moves” even if it’s only to “know thy enemy”.
Some might argue that the graph is not fair, since Naharnet.com for instance is part of Annahar group, which also runs Annahar.com and Annaharonline.com. But this post is not about individual websites. It’s about trends; Naharnet can be a fairly representative of the trend of Annahar’s websites, and that trend is downwards in comparison to tayyar.org’s.
Do you want a fun experience? Go to this website and compare the tayyar’s website to others. So far, only Annaharonline.com and Assafir.com beat Tayyar.org (slightly), but Tayyara.org flies above Almustaqbal.com, albaladonline.com and surges way ahead of the puny dailystar.com.lb which is losing readers by the day.
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The beirut spring is a blog that is interested in Lebanese society and its politics. It started in February 2005 after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
October 29th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
Perhaps another reason was tayyar posted Mehlis immediately.
Naharnet and others were asleep for hours when the most awaited report in Lebanese history came out.
October 29th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Stop trying to find excuses, there is no way that while all of Lebanon and Lebanese around the world stayed up to read the report, all the Lebanese newspapers were “sleeping”. If this is a way to find justification for the rankings, it is a poor one. All Lebanese news organizations were up and running when the Mehlis report came out, and it is Naharnet’s fault for not having a special edition or link to the report.
Thus, that shows the inherint difference between Tayyar.org and Naharnet for example, and why tayyar.org might take the lead.
October 30th, 2005 at 1:49 am
Anon??? You just agreed that Naharnet did not link for hours.
So WTF are you talking about? What excuses? Excuses for what?
I just said tayyar had the report immediately. Naharnet did not. Is that too complicated for you?
October 30th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Mustapha, I don’t think you can really compare these two sites.
Tayyar is a political site, with a political mandate and they have the URL on the front of the podium in Rabieh. Naharnet still has to report on all news. And as you mention, those who seek Lebanese news in arabic are browsing the newspaper version.
So all in all, a little like apples and oranges (no pun intended).
Do you know if Orange TV is for real? LBC is being more than helpful, is there a need for it? Anyway, it would steal the limelight from tayyar.org, but you’d get to see Aoun shaving in the morning…
October 31st, 2005 at 11:26 pm
You can very much compare the 2 websites. They are both political sites. One is the site of the FPM, and the other the site of the MP, Mr Bus rider, Gibran Tueni. Why a lot of readers such as myself have abandoned naharnet is because it has become a propoganda site for Tueni and other share holders of the An Nahar.
FPM supporters tend to find this site seems to ignore them and their activities, and have learned long ago of the need for a means to get your message across rather than rellying on others.
R.B.
November 1st, 2005 at 10:09 am
R.B
I am not going to argue with you about whether Naharnet is a propaganda machine or not…
but one thing for sure, Tayarr.org is a propaganda machine by iteslf….
Look at the famous propaganda campaign they tried on B. Harb; where they twisted the conversation between Mr. X and Ghazale and Tayyar claimed that the conversation was about the Presidency; while in reality they were discussing the PM position….
All news outlets can be labeled as propaganda for X, Y or Z, the first thing I learned in university is NOT to believe everythng you read, you must have the analatical capability to distinguish between what is correct and what is not
November 1st, 2005 at 10:31 am
Khaled I agree with you to an extent. In regards to the Mehlis report regarding Harb. The conversation is very clearly and obviously about the Presidency. You theory on this one is very very far fetched. Do you deny that you are also a propogandarist (I hope this word exists) for the FM?
R.B.
November 2nd, 2005 at 5:49 am
Mustapha,
I applaud your interest and effort to analyze trends, however it is important to note that alexa.com does not provide accurate data.
The way that alexa gathers information on web traffic is purely based on individuals who have the alexa toolbar installed in their web browser. It is not a toolbar that is widely used, therefore basing usage statistics on a relatively small percentage of the total Internet users will yield inaccurate results. Using flawed data for trends analysis can be somewhat misleading.
I bring this up because I have contacted Alexa about the misrepresentation of websites, including mine, and the inaccurate web traffic data they have published. Alexa responded by stating that they realize the data is gathered by their limited user base, and therefore is not intended to accurately represent real data.
Best regards,
rsh
November 2nd, 2005 at 10:14 am
Ramzi,
The thesis of my post was “the champion of all websites”. I never said “political websites”. In absolute, tayyar.org seems to be the most comprehensive as both a party engine and a communication tool. Most websites are just one of the two.
YL:
let’s not forget that this is a comparative piece; therefore the limited reach of Alexa affects both Tayyar.org and Naharnet. We can also be fairly confident that the two websites have visitors that come from the same sphere and have similar surfing habits, in other words, it is unlikely that more Alexa-Bar users go to Tayyar than to Naharnet, unless there’s a strong case that one website’s surfers are geekier than the other’s.
November 2nd, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Mustapha,
If we were talking about the Google toolbar here, there would be no argument. The Alexa toolbar on the other hand does not represent a reasonable group of users. We’re literally talking about a handful of users with respect to the world wide view. So even for comparing one site to another, the data is flawed.
I’ve seen you make remarks about a website in the past based on their Alexa “traffic ranking”, which uses absolute data to rank websites based on their proprietary toolbar users. Absolutely meaningless data. So my remarks here are not limited to the comparison above, but are intented as a more general statement about exercising caution when referencing Alexa data.
Keep up the great work.
March 10th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Arguing before thinking! If alexa is taken as a sample, well ACCORDING to ALEXA tayyar.org is almost the best in Lebanon.
According to another traffic sniffer, well you have to see. Alexa is the same for all webs. The same for any other traffic sniffer. If alexa didn’t catch you because u’re protected and surfing invisible on the site, well other programs will not catch you too. Then your count is = 0 (zero). You’re not part of the statistics. So according to ALEXA, yes! tayyar.org is reaching a high level. Capish??