How do I know I have four readers?
I recently asked the maintainers of https://blogs.gotdotnet.com if
they kept access stats on my blog; I was curious if anyone actually read it.
They sent me to a web page with a ton of stats and charts; on one of those, it says
that over the past month, my RSS feed has had 6151 “views”, and 2995 “visits”.
I’m not sure what the difference is, but lets be pessimistic and take the smaller
number; about three thousand.
Now, I figure my readers, being high-tech folks, have their aggregators set up to
poll every hour. That means each one polls about 25 times a day, or 750 times
over the past thirty days. I remember enough math to know that 3000 divided
by 750 equals four; the number of readers I have.
Comments
- Anonymous
September 23, 2003
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 23, 2003
I figured my psuedo-science would force a response from someone! <grin> - Anonymous
September 23, 2003
In all seriousness, and in contrast to my last reply, I have to say that as a neophyte blogger I really, really crave feedback on what I write. Rory, thank you for your thoughtful and well-written response - I truly appreciate it. - Anonymous
September 23, 2003
Apparently, I'm one of your four readers. As you predicted, I read your blog through an aggregator that checks your RSS feed once an hour. I feel that these credentials qualify me to make the following points:I really enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work.Where do I sign up for this newfangled 25-hour day? Wait... is this Avalon? It is, isn't it. Avalon is really Microsoft's new productivity suite, one feature of which is an extra hour in each day! I need to buy MS stock!If this is not the case, and your day only has 24 hours (pathetic!), then I must be the fractional reader you carelessly rounded off and discarded. I'm crushed. I take back what I said about enjoying your blog. I'm going to go read Scoble now. - Anonymous
September 23, 2003
Depending on your stats, and how they've worked BlogX on this server, the hits maybe real - eg when you change someting. I check all my blogs every hour, but I dont download all my feeds every hour - My aggregator only checks to see if the feed has changed and then downloads it.You've probably got more readers than you think ;)Oh, your blog is great. Your non-testing related posts are cool, and then you post ruddy great testing ones which rock my non-testing world :) - Anonymous
September 23, 2003
For the record I am the fourth reader. :-) - Anonymous
September 23, 2003
Guess I'm the fifth-reader Bruce doesn't think exists. Is it okay if I continue to read your blog Bruce?Especially the posts about testing is very interesting :) - Anonymous
September 24, 2003
I read through the "Blogs@GotDotNet.Com Unofficial Feed", i.e. someone else is doing the aggregating for lots of readers - which explains how I'm number 6 :) - Anonymous
September 24, 2003
Looks like Rory is right - trying to make sense of web stats is a fools game. Thanks for the comments; that makes my day! - Anonymous
September 24, 2003
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 24, 2003
You know, Bruce - I'm not the kind of guy who sits around watching the comments grow in a post, waiting for the moment when it's just perfect to say "I told you so."But......I told you so!There's a bunch of us... And we're just the ones who've commented. Most readers don't interact. It's like those mailing lists we're all on - 79,321 subscribers, and it always seems like the same 12 people who're posting.Yup! I told you so.But, it's a good kind of "I told you so."Also, I think "The Galactic Patrol" is an awesome name for a blog. I got kind of mad when I saw it because I realized that I hadn't thought of it.Keep it up, mister... - Anonymous
September 25, 2003
Thanks again! Especially for the "Galactic Patrol" comment - a lot of folks might not get the reference, but those books have stuck with me ever since I first read them; this is my way of paying homage to them. - Anonymous
September 25, 2003
The total number of readers doesn't matter because the only 2 people that count are Bill Gates and Rory, and since Rory replied, you are at least half way to goal.DonXML - Anonymous
September 25, 2003
Well...actually I am reading your blog, too, which makes one more on your counter.At least you have one regular visitor from Switzerland ; ) CHeers! - Anonymous
September 25, 2003
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 26, 2003
Rory, you're beginning to freak me out here, man :-) - Anonymous
September 29, 2003
Add another reader.I'm reading from New Zealand.I tend to read from the GDN Unofficial feeds and don't get around to reading every post, but try to pick up interesting subjects. - Anonymous
September 30, 2003
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 30, 2003
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
October 22, 2003
Bruce!! cheer up .....all maths is wrong, then how will someone intelligent like you can get so low score...dont worry.....probs 3000/750 <> 4 (forget the floating error in pentium machines).