I was watching the stats of the blog recently and here is what I found:
One would think that starting 2009, interest stabilized except for the localized interest due to the SPARS'09 meeting and the Duke Workshop. Appearances are deceiving though as the readership of the blog turned to using the blog's feed. Here are the stats from feedburner (one third of the full RSS readership):
The 200 mark on the left hand side refers to the number of readers per day. Since I generally post during the week, this translate into 200 x 22 = 4400 hits per month for Feedreader or about 10,000 hits per months from the feed readers. This is on top of the stats shown above of 10,000 hits per months. In all about 20,000 hits per month (or a potential 20,000/22 = 900 readers/post). This number does not include the 214 people receiving every posts by e-mail.
In all, while the hits on the blog are probably newcomers (half of the traffic comes from search engine), I am more concerned about the generic number of committed readers (feed or e-mail): This number is currently at 764 and I will refer to this one number from now on instead of hits/months which in the end does not mean much.
After more than 500 posts on the subject, I am concerned that there is an information overload (see the result of the poll in the I-can't-keep-up post) and I am wondering if, strike that, I am certain that there is an interest for a monthly or bi-monthly (?) newsletter. It would be a subscription based newsletter (you'd have to pay to get it) and here is the pitch: there would be absolutely nothing new in that newsletter. However, it would NOT be a newsletter about nothing a la Seinfeld :-)
Rather the newsletter would provide some sort of version control and some context about the current investigations/ideas happening in the field. Nothing in the newsletter would be new in the sense that the blog, the attendant pages (CS big picture, CS Jobs, CS Online Talks/Videos, CS Hardware) would function in exactly the same manner and remain open to everybody. The newsletter would provide some sorts of summary to the folks who, for different reasons, cannot keep up with the daily flow of information in the field. Do you think there is an interest ? Please come to the site and let me know by answering the following poll (see below).
One would think that starting 2009, interest stabilized except for the localized interest due to the SPARS'09 meeting and the Duke Workshop. Appearances are deceiving though as the readership of the blog turned to using the blog's feed. Here are the stats from feedburner (one third of the full RSS readership):
The 200 mark on the left hand side refers to the number of readers per day. Since I generally post during the week, this translate into 200 x 22 = 4400 hits per month for Feedreader or about 10,000 hits per months from the feed readers. This is on top of the stats shown above of 10,000 hits per months. In all about 20,000 hits per month (or a potential 20,000/22 = 900 readers/post). This number does not include the 214 people receiving every posts by e-mail.In all, while the hits on the blog are probably newcomers (half of the traffic comes from search engine), I am more concerned about the generic number of committed readers (feed or e-mail): This number is currently at 764 and I will refer to this one number from now on instead of hits/months which in the end does not mean much.
After more than 500 posts on the subject, I am concerned that there is an information overload (see the result of the poll in the I-can't-keep-up post) and I am wondering if, strike that, I am certain that there is an interest for a monthly or bi-monthly (?) newsletter. It would be a subscription based newsletter (you'd have to pay to get it) and here is the pitch: there would be absolutely nothing new in that newsletter. However, it would NOT be a newsletter about nothing a la Seinfeld :-)
Rather the newsletter would provide some sort of version control and some context about the current investigations/ideas happening in the field. Nothing in the newsletter would be new in the sense that the blog, the attendant pages (CS big picture, CS Jobs, CS Online Talks/Videos, CS Hardware) would function in exactly the same manner and remain open to everybody. The newsletter would provide some sorts of summary to the folks who, for different reasons, cannot keep up with the daily flow of information in the field. Do you think there is an interest ? Please come to the site and let me know by answering the following poll (see below).
Thanks!
2 comments:
I get nuit blanche through google reader, so I am not sure I am counted in the magic 764. I think that such a readership is high anyway (Nuit Blanche has 264 subscribers on google reader). Increasingly, I find myself searching for past entries, and for abstracts. Right now, I think this blog serves three purposes:
1. it is the single most comprehensive extensive bibliography (inclusive of abstracts, titles, and authors, but missing keyword) on compressive sensing you could find anywhere;
2. it disseminates information in a timely manner, bringing to the attention of the readers new interesting papers they could have missed;
3. It has a number of long entries that illuminate a specific issue.
How could things be improved? Regarding 1., it would be useful to have html, pdf, and bibtex files with all published articles and books on C.S. This file would summarize the past blog entries, and be augmented by blog entries on new papers.
Regarding 2. the blog, or a newsletter, could help. I think the blog is still uniquely suited to post new abstracts. The newsletter could be monthly or once-in-two-months, and could sport a comprehensive list of titles and authors, and also short contributions from others (extended abstracts, viewpoints on an issue, open problems, advertising/guides on a new sw etc.). I think it should be in pdf-only format and should be free or cheap.
Regarding 3. I think the blog is still the right medium, and it should be preserved as the viewpoint of Igor.
In the post, you mentioned that readers have to pay to get the newsletter ? Then, do you plan to recruit editors for the newsletter, don't you :) I'm willing to apply for this job for free reading :-) lol
Tho^ng, JHU
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