WSJ.com had 4.5 million unique visitors in
July. That’s less than the LA Times, and less than a third of what nytimes.com
gets. Even a second-tier blog like consumerist.com can boast
over 2 million uniques. Remember that nytimes.com competes with hundreds of
general-news sites globally. WSJ.com competes with a mere handful of financial-news
websites, some of which (like Bloomberg.com) are barely trying. If and when
Rupert Murdoch makes WSJ.com free, expect its site stats to
go through the roof. Between MySpace and WSJ.com, he’ll have a nice barbell
strategy going.