One of the things I did when I first started my own blog was obsessively check readership stats. I wanted readers. I don’t know why I wanted readers; I just did. My blog was never intended to make money, and because at the time we had a very strict policy in which I couldn’t write about technology, it wasn’t like I got some sort of professional whuffie out of it. (The reverse was probably true, as I wrote about nothing stuff. Owls, kid humor.)
I have tried not to do the same thing here. I’ve tried, in fact, to stop checking the readership stats on my own blog — in fact, the last time I checked them was at least two hours ago. (There’s a slider bar! Shiny! Ooooh, slider bar!) But i admit to wanting comments. Comments make me seem interesting! I admit this. So I am amazed by the bravery I see when I see things like the 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die site go up, because on the recordings there’s very little comment traffic. Now, Moon himself has some monster whuffie. This is an NPR guy with real musical creds, and reading the book — which I do obsessively now, like I did Dave Marsh’s book in high school — has taken me back to the era when music was constantly new for me, renewed with every new record I borrowed and heard. Remember when your budget was so tight you’d buy a record with someobody else and then one of you would get to keep the LP and the other would get to make a cassette?
Anyhow, what I’m saying is that I am impressed by the fortitude of 1000 Recordings. If I were starting a site like that, I’d want lots of comments right away and a sense that everyone was listening and signing up and buying the book and saying what they thought RIGHT AWAY. We ourselves chose to seed this blog thing for a weekend before we got started, and you can imagine, I was thinking I needed more time — like the first visitor should find me hard at work, a sort of Atrus.
I’m gonna write Moon and ask questions about the online book. Got any ideas for me to ask him about?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Daniel Tunkelang // Sep 26, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Whit, happy to supply you with your first comment. I empathize all too well with your obsession with readership stats. I even tell myself it’s rational: after all, we write to be read!
Speaking of which, if you’re here and interested in learning more about search and information access, I encourage you to increase my readership stats by checking out http://thenoisychannel.com/
2 Joely // Sep 28, 2008 at 1:28 am
Whit, we recently launched our own internal blog to discuss key trends & topics that we see in our respective spaces. I have to admit to this addiction of obsessive stats tracking. Isn’t it human nature to produce something that others will find value or meaning? Isn’t it why we do it even though it doesn’t lead to any immediate tangible benefit for us personally (e.g., no more money or title improvements.) The power of recognition and respect of our peers — amazing how much that contributes to our drive to share our knowledge and engage in discussions.
Anyway, keep blogging and I am pointing my feeder here for future discussions. Cheers.
3 Whit // Sep 28, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Cheers to you, Joely. My blog goes to eleven.
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