The Funniest States?

I've been playing with mapping the use of bit.ly, the link-shortening service. You can look at each state and see real-time data on what news sources are most often used. So today let's look for that ultimate of all news sources -- The Onion. The satirical news site shows up on the top 10 lists of some states but not others.

For some states (when I checked, data change constantly), The Onion is the #1 "online only" site.  There's New Mexico, Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc. Here in Georgia where I live, it's only #5 (HuffPo is #1). What's fascinating is how, in the conservative South, HuffPo dominates in the use of bit.ly links. In northern states, The Onion is often #1. Weird.

For "newspapers" you tend to see USA Today in the South, and in the north you're more likely to see The New York Times. Interesting. At the moment, The Guardian is #1 in New York (and, at the moment, Texas). The "winners by state" option is also telling.

What can you do with this? Not much in an ever-changing map. But it'd be fun to analyze a database from these links.