The impact of a Freakonomics blog post about a paper, as measured by abstract views and download statistics from Research Papers in Economics (RePEc):
Nearly as impactful as a Faculty Lounge mention.
The authors build a database of 94 papers linked to on 6 blogs: Aid Watch (before it ended), Chris Blattman, Economix (New York Times), Marginal Revolution, Freakonomics, and Paul Krugman. The results?
Blogging about a paper causes a large increase in the number of abstract views and downloads in the same month . . .
These increases are massive compared to the typical abstract views and downloads these papers get- one blog post in Freakonomics is equivalent to 3 years of abstract views! However, only a minority of readers click through – we estimate 1-2% of readers of the more popular blogs click on the links to view the abstracts . . .
Well, why read the paper when you can get the gist of it from the blog commentary, I guess. Lazy intellectualism at its best.
Yes, I'm much better read (or, at least, more widely read) now that so many papers have been helpfully condensed into a few paragraphs (often along with a critique) by some blogger . . . assuming the blogger is good, of course.