I saw your comment on Bits and this related post. A few thoughts.

I’m not insensitive to the discrepancies between media rating agencies and server logs. I’ve been writing about this for a decade. Note that the 12 million user figure you cite seems to be worldwide, versus the U.S. home and office (not school, wi-fi and public terminal) estimate for Nielson. Also, server measurements have their own problems.

Of course, those differences aren’t the whole story. These ratings do have significant flaws. So do the Nielsen TV ratings and the Arbitron radio ratings, and, as we’ve seen, election exit polls. I’ve come to the conclusion that I serve my readers by quoting from Nielsen and comscore numbers. (I choose not to use Compete or Hitwise because I don’t think their methods are up to snuff. Some others here at the Times will use their numbers.)

Why? Because I think their estimates are based on a sound, internally consistent method. So it seems likely that the relative rankings have meaning. If Engadget is growing faster than Gizmodo (or vice versa) this method should, with some error, pick it up. Clearly the point of my post–that AOL dominates the list of top blogs–seems sound. I certainly didn’t draw any meaning out of 2.1 million. I was a bit impressed at 80 percent growth.

Reasonable people may disagree. But this is how I’ve approached this consistently over a decade.

Also, If you sent me an e-mail, other than the comment, I didn’t see it. I wouldn’t ignore you deliberately. Feel free to write or call any time.

Very best

Saul