The Post Is Bigger Than the Times Online. Or Not

In the Web-based battle between legacy media companies, each side is winning in its own way.
Photo illustration: Tom Hall/Bloomberg
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Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and in just over two years made it bigger than the New York Times, at least on the Web. The Post’s online traffic surpassed the Times’s in October, and widened the gap last month, according to recently released statistics from ComScore. About 71.6 million people visited the Post's sites last month, about 4 percent more than the Times’s audience of 68.8 million.

The Washington Post’s strategy to win the Internet mirrors that of newer competitors like BuzzFeed, as laid out well in this piece on Digiday. The paper has focused on social media, especially Facebook, and dedicated itself to publishing more viral and bloggy content.