It’s now one month since the launch of News Ltd’s news-aggregation/blog/online-media-something site The Punch and a few months since we relaunched our very own Crikey website with added news aggregation, more blogs, and extra online content, and the Australian media commentariat are now dutifully weighing in on who is winning the readership wars from the frontlines of the new media battlefield.*

mUmBRELLA has looked to online audience measurement service Alexa for answers:

The Punch has so far failed to overhaul its biggest commentry rival Crikey. However, it appears to have already moved past New Matilda.

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Crikey has stayed consistently on top, with both sites showing a surge late last week coinciding with the death of Michael Jackson.

(This is true, although we recorded a bigger surge earlier in the week in response to Utegate, and we’d hazard a guess that The Punch — who were very well across the scandal and even scored a mention or two in Parliament in relation to it — saw a similar response).

On talking digital, Ben Shepherd looks at the Nielsen figures:

In terms of PR and bluster thepunch.com.au has succeeded … Unfortunately, the numbers aren’t that great.

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I can already see the boasting now — The Punch beats Crikey in month 1 (for unique browsers) … and this is true. The Punch has more users than Crikey.

However in the key metrics and the metrics which indicate user interest and engagement Crikey is belting them.

In a totally unrelated but eerily apt event this morning (and I realise that sounds like absolute BS and no-one is going to believe this, but I put this poll up at 10:26am and didn’t see either article until after 11), we ran a very silly Twitter poll via @crikey_news on who would win in a fist fight between Crikey editor Jonathan Green, The Punch editor David Penberthy and New Matilda editor Marni Cordell, following a genuine newsroom discussion on the matter.

Penbo took an early lead, but the results are currently sitting at:

* Not that it’s a contest or anything; we’re all special in our own way. Journalism is the real winner. (But also us).