We commented in September on the hours and effort required to establish a policy blog such as AIDS Matters. At that stage we had about 800 monthly visitors from 40 countries. At this point those numbers have grown to approximately 4500 monthly visitors from 80 countries. Linking web sites have grown from 16 ot 75. The site still requires several hours per week of attention.

Based on these numbers, are policy blogs worth it? Assuming AIDS Matters indeed reaches thousands of people, and assuming it continues to grow, it seems hard to argue against the investment.

For groups considering policy blogs, I'd again point to the excellent vaccine blog maintained by Owen Barder at the Center for Global Development as a good example. Also feel free to contact us about policy blogs if you are considering one for your organization.