We like numbers! A-list tech blogger Robert Scoble drops some informal traffic stats for clickthroughs to his site from popular Web hubs. Dave Winer also posts a few. Compared to Valleywagger Jordan Golson's 5 million hits from Matt Drudge, the numbers disappoint. They'll send bloggers backpedaling to boasts that they "influence the influencers," that everyone knows the big newspapers, radio and TV shows now rely on blogs for their stories and are surrounded by a blog "ecosystem" — see this chart. Sorry, I still prefer direct eyeballs, best found away from the tech-blog network. Case study: The Wall Street Journal.

WSJ.com charges $79 a year for online access, a "costwall" that supposedly locks the Journal out of "the conversation." As a newly-conscripted Journal contributor, my reality is wildly different. The neighbors in my apartment elevator greeted me with "you're the Wall Street Journal writer, right?" after my first article. I inquired and learned the site has more than a million active subscribers. The print paper's daily readership is even higher. Techies overlook the Journal because it's read by the business staff of their companies, not the engineers who surf Boing Boing. Obsessing over Techmeme rankings misses just such other, bigger conversations that barely overlap the Techmeme circuit. Contrary to Scoble's claim, many are smart and few are about Paris Hilton.