FORGET George Bush and John Kerry, you can even forget the daughters; bloggers were the stars of this election campaign. At some points during the election it seemed hard to imagine that the online diarists actually had time to file their copy so busy were they with television appearances and photo shoots for the glossy “old” media world.

But now that the votes are cast it seems once more that the internet may have been trying to make things look bigger than they are.

According to ComScore Networks, which measures web traffic, the sites that got the most hits on election day belonged to the mainstream media. Topping the list was CNN.com, which got more than 3.6m visitors on Monday, November 1 and over 5.6m hits the following day.

Next came Foxnews.com, with more than 1m visitors on the Monday and close to 2m on election day. Blogger.com, a site that hosts thousands of blogs, didn’t crack 400,000 hits on Tuesday, according to ComScore. Wonkette, a Washington-based minx and the media darling of the blogosphere, didn’t break 50,000 readers, according to ComScore. Worse still the bloggers even managed to pull off their own CNN moment.

Readers will recall Bush’s previous victory in the controversial 2000 “hanging chad” election. Then, in another closely fought election, CNN and other networks managed to call a victory for Al Gore before all the votes were in, only to see their 11th-hour prediction overturned by events.

This recklessness led to much soul-searching and is no doubt the reason why this election night’s TV coverage was stultifyingly dull and cautious. Not so on the net.

The blogs ended up with egg on their faces after releasing early exit poll data suggesting Kerry was on his way to a victory. In the wake of the 2000 election’s prediction problems the preliminary exit poll data was not widely used by television networks and other mainstream media. But thanks to the net, the misleading news spread at hyperspeed and even prompted a Wall Street selloff when it appeared Bush was in trouble.

A superficial look at the figures and the stories suggests that this election proved bloggers were all hype and no substance. But influence and audience are not always the same thing. Early on in this election there was a clear argument to be made that the blogs turned Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, into a serious presidential candidate. They also led the charge against CBS News after the network broadcast fake memos damning Bush.

Each American election is proving a milestone in the evolution of the internet. In 1996, the internet was mostly a source of information, producing heavy traffic on news sites. By 2000, the internet had become a tool for organising ideas and people. This time around, thanks to web logs, the internet had become a global slate for anyone to debate the issues. It also began to influence how campaigns are run.

Dean raised more money than Bill Clinton did a decade ago, thanks in large part to his web-based fundraising. Bloggers may, or may not, play a part in the next election. My prediction is the good ones will get “proper” jobs. But by 2008 the internet will have become even more central to the debate.

Calling this election a failure for bloggers confuses the message with the medium.