A surprising development, but also a sensible one. Blogging for Ed is a career move rather than a hobby and I suspect he's been frustrated with the static nature of blog readership. Most of the current crop of megablogs got their boost in the 2004 election season and Ed settled into a 15-30K daily visitor pattern during this period. Ironically, Michelle Malkin, who started blogging after him, zoomed right past to average 100K daily visitors--joining instapundit in the first tier. Ed may have thought the monster readership spike in 2005 when he scooped everyone on the Canadian Gomery commission, would boost his orbit, but alas, it was not to be.

I don't know if anyone really, really understands the dynamic, but static visitor numbers are common throughout the blogosphere. I suspect that many bloggers think this is a function of innate audience appeal. Once a blog attains a critical mass of exposure, it retains a static audience for whom the subject matter and writing style are appealing.

If this is true, and while I expect it is, I have no marketing surveys to confirm it, then certain business decisions become apparent. It seems reasonable that Ed would be able to bring his audience with him to Hot Air, since CQ and Ed Morrissey are interchangeable brands. For Malkin, this means a potential 25K visitor boost. That is important because ad revenues not linear. Relatively small increases in site visitors can be a force multiplier for higher ad revenues. There is a possible synergy here that is very attractive.

The benefits for Ed are less clear. Sure, his writing will be seen by a lot more people, but its questionable whether it will be appreciated by many more than read him already--is there someone out there who reads conservative political blogs who doesn't know where to find the Captain?

The question of style is an important consideration. Malkin does what I'll call outrage journalism while Ed does a more cerebral analysis of political events. Allahpundit was a good fit for Hot Air because his style is similar to Malkins--Ed's is not. It will be interesting to see how that works (or doesn't).

I am guessing here, but I suspect the real attraction for Ed lies with Malkin's association with Fox News and Rupert Murdoch's clear convergence strategy. Cable News needs content like Al Gore needs carbon credits, yet it doesn't make financial sense to produce that content themselves. Instead they are networking their way to a content roster; through their affliates, big east-coast newspapers, political operatives and increasingly--bloggers and columnists. I think that fits with both Malkin's and Morrissey's ambitions.

An email is in order...

UPDATE: More meaningless corporate boilerplate here...

Sister Toldja notes the stylistic differences.

Regarding Captain Ed, what saddens me is that he will be closing down his original CQ website. Ed is one of those rare bloggers who cuts beyond all the hype and always provides thoughtful, level-headed analysis of every issue he blogs about and I’m with Jimmie at the Sundries Shack when he writes that he “like[s] having more voices in more places.” They do a great job at Hot Air, but with all due respect to Michelle Malkin and Allah, sometimes HA could become like an echo chamber, and if you were on a different side of an issue (like immigration, for example), you didn’t feel like your opinion was particularly welcomed - that’s one of the reasons I stopped visiting and linking to them routinely after last year’s immigration debate and have only recently done so in a few select posts.