How the traffic flows
I find myself amazed by how little I can predict which of my entries will generate interest and traffic. There are some entries into which I put a considerable amount of thought and work that gather nearly no interest and then there are those generated by a two minute break from sanity that become popular for no real reason other than their general silliness.
Good example is the entry I made a couple of days ago about referer links on weblogs. It is useful information but I never thought it to be news-breaking.. and as often is the case, I found myself to be wrong. Not only has this inspired a tutorial on how to use the very technique I described to hijack weblogs (why do you need a tutorial? This is simpler than dirt) but also spawned a Register article and a rather detailed discussion on dslreports.com. Granted that last one was directly related to the Register article, but you get my point.
What is to be my logical conclusion here? Stop thinking? Apparently when I do that I produce uninteresting, mediocre content nobody cares about but when I post whatever comes to my mind the whole world is listening. It's enough to give a girl a complex.
The true conclusion, however, is that while weblogs tend to have a more concentrated, specialized audience they are still victim to fickleness of human interest just as much as news is. Well, hope someone found this to be interesting -- my natural cynicism leads me to think otherwise though.. I spent at least five minutes on this entry after all :)
Comments
I've noticed much of the same general principal on my weblog too. The quick, flippant observations are the ones that generate the most traffic and conversation while those that you spent days or weeks planning out could hardly be a fart on the radar. Its rather frustrating. Maybe we should all become cam girl/guys :)
Posted by: Chris | February 19, 2003 11:54 PM
I'm told I'm a lot more fun when I'm not trying. Perhaps the same is true of yourself?
Posted by: Dan Isaacs | February 20, 2003 10:30 AM
Actually, it's the "My day sucks, here's why" that usually get the most traffic. :-)
Posted by: Brian | February 20, 2003 10:51 AM
What if the total amount of thought around any given blog entry is a constant? Then, blog entries with little thought would have to be balanced with much additional thinking expressed as commentary. Well thought-out blog entries already have reached their "thought quota" and need no further comment.
For what it's worth, I enjoy reading the "high effort" entries ... Do keep them coming!
Posted by: Cliff Mees | February 20, 2003 10:59 AM
I can't say I spend that much time writing anything, but I do agree that entries I think will generate a bunch of replies remain empty of comments.
I write mainly to remind myself of silly or annoying things that have happened, and to keep family back home informed as to what I'm up to, and my grumbles that day.
I like blogs of a personal nature. Those which tell of the writers day, with a little wit added. I enjoy your blog most of the time, but when you get all technical, I become clueless. Interested, but nonetheless clueless.
Posted by: Lynne | February 20, 2003 11:48 AM
I like all your stuff. Even the stuff I don't understand.
Posted by: danny molek | February 20, 2003 03:01 PM
This blog came to my attention because of the aforementioned Reg article. I find the mix of posting types here very engaging but, I fear, that there is an important difference between the degree of interest taken by readers in a particular post and the level of feedback to it.
The difficulty is that only one of these is measurable and it's easy fall into the trap of believing that the one is a clear measure of the other.
Posted by: Mike Short | February 21, 2003 07:19 AM