Latest ABCe figures show that the Daily Mail is continuing to exponentially increase the amount of traffic it attracts to its web site.
It now has 17.9m unique users, less than two million behind market leader The Guardian.
This is despite the fact that the Mail only launched a significant online presence in 2004, a lifetime in web years after The Guardian.
Apparently, the Mail is making excellent use of search engine optimisation to entice traffic from all over the world to its site. So if a big international story breaks, such as actor Heath Ledger committing suicide, the Mail is high up the search engines and garners more than its fair share of global traffic for a story such as this.
Smart strategy, and one that seems to be paying off big time for the team from Derry Street that came to the internet party relatively late in the day.
It proves once again that the Holy Grail of first-mover advantage that was trumpeted to the high heavens in the dotcom era is not necessarily the be-all and end-all of building a successful online business strategy.
