Dave On Subscriber Stats
October 15th, 2007 by EyeOnWinerWhy is it that the highest-rated sites, some with supposedly hundreds of thousands of subscribers, only generate a couple hundred hits when they link to you? As Pete Cashmore on Mashable says, it’s because the subscriber numbers don’t reflect actual readership.
Mr. Cashmore’s analysis is interesting but, essentially, more melodrama than anything useful. There are two interesting things about Dave’s post, though. The first is that he continually ignores another possible reason why a link doesn’t get many click-throughs: reader interest. I read a lot of feeds. I click the links contained in them barely 10% of the time. Back when I only read a few sites, I clicked on a much higher percentage. Now, because I have so many feeds, it takes a lot more to pique my interest.
The most interesting thing here, though, is that Mr. Cashmore’s post critiques something GoogleReader has called a “feed bundle”. What is a “feed bundle”, you ask? It’s much like the “reading list” that Dave proposed a few months back. You subscribe to the bundle, Google decides what feeds that includes.
Truth be told, I’m not sure if the larger issue Dave is talking about is even solvable. It sounds like he wants to find the “good” blogs faster, and with less work. It’s already as easy as it’s ever been. Load your feed reader up with a bunch of like-minded people, read their posts (and the pages they link to), and use your brain.
How much easier does it need to be?
October 16th, 2007 at 1:18 am
It’s safe to say that it will get easier to find interesting sites and material on the web… because it’s got the attributes of a “stimulus-response” feedback network.
Like most software it improves with use, user feedback and developer innovation.
PS> Dave wants to save the word “Hate” for seriously damaged people like thr Nazi’s. But he doesn’t offer up a word we can use for the bile he regularly serves on his blog against a variety of targets.
Bile works for me but it doesn’t indicate movitation like Hate does… Maybe “angry” is scaled back a bit and still connotes the proper judgement of Dave’s invectives.
I think the “Hate” word reference is pointed at a recent JC blog post that made it to the Techmeme “cesspool”:
http://www.calacanis.com/2007/10/12/why-techmeme-is-great-and-the-haters-suck-the-official-final/
Calacanis makes his over the top editorial stab at reverse-tolerance:
[ Note: If you're hater there is nothing anyone can say to make you stop being a hater. Haters are born and then haters die--but they don't change. It's in their DNA to hate and be bitter. It's their lot in life to be miserable. Their inner hate is, in fact, their self-imposed punishment. There is no reason for us add to it. ]
SARCASM ON I hate intolerant people. SARCASM OFF
Seriously, people need to get over themselves and seek common ground with people that have offended them. Hate escalates on fear and over powering ego needs. Hate exists beneath the surface for most people as a defense mechanism. Hate needs to be outted and not enabled by friends who encourage bad bahavior.
Hate sucks… the very life out of you.
October 16th, 2007 at 3:43 am
I found it hard to concentrate on this abstract issue, when there was a glaring example of dave’s monumental stupidity just a little farther down the page. dave whined that his iPhone stopped ringing. Everyone (except dave) knows this can only be caused by the Silent Mode switch. Someone pointed it out to him, dave said he’d fiddled with the switch and didn’t notice that it did anything. Apparently he overlooked the huge icon of the bell with a slash through it that appears when you flip the switch, accompanied by a vibration (to indicate it’s in vibrate-only mode).