Salon editor-in-chief Kerry Lauerman explains how the site has been able to get more readers by putting up less content:
We've … slowed down our process. We've tried to work longer on stories for greater impact, and publish fewer quick-takes that we know you can consume elsewhere. We're actually publishing, on average, roughly one-third fewer posts on Salon than we were a year ago (from 848 to 572 in December; 943 to 602 in January). So: 33 percent fewer posts; 40 percent greater traffic. It sounds simple, maybe obvious, but: We've gone back to our primary mission and have been focusing on originality. And it's working.
Felix Salmon thinks Salon is an exception:
[W]hile I’m extremely happy to see high-quality journalism reach a very large audience online, I’m far from convinced that we’re about to enter a golden age where publishers get rewarded for spending lots of effort and money on commissioning, editing, and publishing extraordinary content…If you want to get to half a million pageviews, you’re always much more likely to get there with a thousand blog posts than you are with a single swing for the fences.
Yglesias chips in two cents.
The Dish 