Two days ago, Heather Hopkins the VP of Research for Hitwise UK, blogged about Hillary Clinton’s exit from the presidential race and how clickstream data indicated a greater interest in Obama than Mc Cain among HillaryClinton.com US visitors, after the June 7, 2008 rally in which Clinton “eloquently” asked her supporters to back Obama. Heather implied in her post that this clickstream finding could put to rest the rumors of a divided Democratic party.

My comments are these:

First, the word “eloquently” doesn’t belong in an objective assessment of what clickstream data may, or may not, indicate. Such adjectives serve well in polemic discussions with an intent to persuade based upon emotion, not analyze based upon reason.

Second, if clickstream flow shows that more HillaryClinton.com visitors went to the Obama site than the Mc Cain site, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Clinton supporters would prefer Obama over Mc Cain, nor does that data weaken the argument of a divided Democratic party. Heather should have tempered her analysis with context by mentioning that Obama supporters skew younger than Clinton supporters. It’s common knowledge that Internet users skew younger; see this Pew organization study. Perhaps it was only a small segment of Clinton supporters, the younger segment, clicking over from the Clinton site to the Obama site? This possibility should have been raised in an objective analysis.

During this political season, I don’t expect the mainstream media to be very objective. But I was hoping the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 media would be more circumspect. I hope that I won’t be disappointed.

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