Techdirt 2010: The Numbers.

from the happy-new-year dept

Wed, Jan 12th 2011 1:22pm — Dennis Yang

2010 was a great year for Techdirt. We thought we'd share some stats about 2010 with all of you (and yes, we're a little late on this but we finally got around to pulling together the numbers).

We posted 3,798 stories, generating 152,683 comments. According to Google Analytics, Techdirt had 11,490,135 visits in 2010. So, if Techdirt were a National Park (and you readers were visiting us in real life), we'd be the #3 most popular park in the country, just behind the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Or if we were a museum, we'd be well ahead of the top ranked Louvre, who only did a paltry 8.5 million visits last year. Yes, I know those are unfair comparisons but it's still a fun way to view things in perspective. Of course, if any of you really do want to visit us in real life, we'd love to have you.

Separately, the traffic numbers represented continued growth over the course of the year. If we're just looking at our December numbers, traffic in December of 2010 was 62% higher than in December 2009, and that was after continued growth throughout the year. So, it looks like we ended the year with a lot more folks here in the community than we started with, which is always a nice thing.

While certainly a large part of our traffic is US-based, the community here really is quite global with visitors coming from an astounding 230 different countries or territories (and yes, we did recently have a discussion about how there were fewer countries than that in the world, but Google Analytics counts "territories" too -- so a big shout out to you, the one visitor from Christmas Island).

Not surprisingly, the top four countries were all English speaking countries (US, Canada, UK and Australia) but Germany clocked in at number 5, followed by the Netherlands, India, France, Sweden and Spain. After India, Japan was the leading Asian country, which narrowly beat out China. Brazil was the leading South American country, topping Argentina by a decent margin. In Africa, not too surprisingly, South Africa was tops with Egypt coming in second. Of course, it looks like we did not get visits from every country in the world. Among those with no visitors at all were North Korea, Western Sahara & Chad. Pretty much every other country I checked had at least one visitor, though there may be some tiny Pacific Islands that I'm unaware of that didn't send any visitors and which I can't easily spot on the map.

Within the US, just looking at states, our top visitors were from California and then New York (with Texas close behind). The state that sent the least number of visitors? Wyoming. Not like anyone lives there anyway (kidding Wyomans, kidding). If we look at the top cities worldwide, New York dominated in terms of visitors, with a surprise second place finish from London, beating out all other US cities (perhaps less surprising taking into account population totals). San Francisco, LA and Chicago round out the top five. DC comes in at number seven. Sydney, Australia is the second non-US city and number 9 on the overall list.

Most of you still use Windows, followed by Mac and Linux pulling up in third place. iPhone visitors topped Android visitors (2:1) but I would bet that's going to change over the next year. Firefox was the most popular browser. Internet Explorer (?!?) eked out a tiny victory over Chrome, though I can't imagine that staying true much longer.

In any case, thanks to everyone for making Techdirt the thriving community that it is. Here's to a great 2011.

Top Ten Stories, by Unique Pageviews, on Techdirt for 2010:

Best Buy Firing Employee Because He Makes A Funny Video That Doesn't Even Mention Best Buy - July 2nd
The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet - November 18th
'Hollywood Accounting' Losing In The Courts - July 8th
Facebook Threatens Greasemonkey Script Writer - March 25th
Why Congress Isn't So Concerned With TSA Nude Scans & Gropes: They Get To Skip Them - November 18th
Guy Building A Working (Yes, Working) Computer Inside A Video Game - September 29th
RIAA Accounting: Why Even Major Label Musicians Rarely Make Money From Album Sales - July 13th
Why The Wikileaks Document Release Is Key To A Functioning Democracy - December 1st
Sony Deletes Feature On PS3's; You Don't Own What You Thought You Bought - March 31st
More Casinos Succeeding With The 'That Jackpot You Won Was Really A Computer Glitch' Claim - June 7th

2010's Top Posts, by Comment Volume:

UK Hairdresser Fined For Playing Music Even Though He Tried To Be Legal - 599 comments
Defining Success: Were The RIAA's Lawsuits A Success Or Not? - 417 comments
The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet - 401 comments
Four Years In, How Successful Has Hollywood's Attack On The Pirate Bay Been - 376 comments
Can Someone Explain Why Circumvention For Non-Infringing Purposes Is Illegal? - 364 comments
Is Intellectual Property Itself Unethical? - 337 comments
Why Debates Over Copyright Get Bogged Down: Conflating Use With Payment - 315 comments
Give A Man A Fish... And Make It Illegal To Teach Fishing - 302 comments
Why Voting For COICA Is A Vote For Censorship - 300 comments
Composer Jason Robert Brown Still Standing By His Position That Kids Sharing His Music Are Immoral - 292 comments

It seems worth pointing out that there was almost no overlap between the stories that were most visited and those that had the most comments (only one story makes both lists). This is actually pretty common. Many people assume that more comments automatically means the most popular stories in terms of traffic, but that's almost never the case. Traffic and comments do not correlate nearly as much as you would expect. Some of the stories with the most comments often involve a very small number of people continuing to have a (often quite interesting!) discussion long after everyone else has moved on...

2010's Top Users, By Comment Volume*:

Dark Helmet -2,278 comments
Hephaestus - 2,277 comments
nasch - 1,597 comments
Richard - 1,539 comments
Technopolitical - 1,265 comments
Karl - 1,249 comments
average_joe - 1,156 comments
Rose M. Welch - 993 comments
PaulT - 982 comments
ChurchHatesTucker - 918 comments

*Mike had 2,964 comments so he's technically the top commenter, but I'm not counting him here.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: numbers, stats, techdirt

84 Comments

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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 12:36pm

Winner!
1.Dark Helmet -2,278 comments
2.Hephaestus - 2,277 comments

Ha! I kicked his ass!
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:32pm

I wonder where I was on the list?
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crade (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:38pm

Contratulations on the growth, and on beating out Dark Helmet for most comments! :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jay (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:40pm

Re: Winner!
FINISH HIM!!!
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reboog711 (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:41pm

Cool Stats
Those are cool stats.

I have some curiosity about the financial info and profitability of the site. ( How much did you make; where does it come from; what was the profit; etc.. ). It'd be very cluetrain manifesto-ish for ya'll to share that info.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:45pm

Re: Winner!
Proof that Dark Helmet's mouth truly is like 7/11

Just Kidding. Love your posts.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:47pm

Re: Winner!
Very awesome!

I salute you, sir.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:48pm

Re: Re: Winner!
Also, @Mike

Infographics... would've been nice.

That is all.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:48pm

Re: Re: Winner!
"FINISH HIM!!!"

*Slips Schwartz ring on finger and ignites slightly wobbelly phallis-like beam of energy*
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Gwiz (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:51pm

Re: Winner!
2010's Top Users, By Comment Volume

Oh...it's the number of comments...not how loud they were. :p
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pringerX (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:53pm

That is pretty hilarious. If this were an election, Hephaestus should demand a recount.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:54pm

Next Year...
Comment ranking broken down by the two positive tags (funny/insightful)....
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:55pm

Random evil thought
Right, who else thinks we should take up a collection to buy Darryl the $1k package and send him up to hang out with Mike and the staff for a day?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 1:57pm

Re:
No, Hephaestus should demand a hand recount. A regular recount would take less time than posting the results. It wouldn't drag things out nearly enough.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:00pm

Re: Re:
So sorry, all paper copies of the vote tallies were lost in a strange whirlwind created by a maid-like robotic automoton. All results are now final....
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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:03pm

Re: Random evil thought
....I'm in for $50.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Gwiz (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:09pm

Re:
If this were an election, Hephaestus should demand a recount

Right. But the question is do we count the dangling chads or not?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:11pm

However, if you get away from a couple of pointed topics (wikileaks, which lead a huge short term run up), things wouldn't be quite as rosy.

You may also want to show your bounce rate. I suspect a lot of people are sucked into a single page and then back away. According to Alexa:

"The percentage of visits to techdirt.com that consist of a single pageview:"

80%

Average page views of 1.4

Site ain't exactly engaging people, just catching drive by people searching for other stuff.

It seems impressive until you realize how many people you didn't engage (about 9 million of your 11 million or so visitor).
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:12pm

Re: Re: Random evil thought
And which spots do you want in the pool for how much the $1k package goes up the day afterwards?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:14pm

Re:
Seriously, TAM? Wikileaks accounts for exactly 1 post out of the 20 listed.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:19pm

Re:
Oh no! Only 2 million engaged people!!
/sarc
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Gwiz (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:20pm

Re:
Apparently our distinguished Anonymous Coward is feeling the need to piss in someone's Cheerios for no apparent reason.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:22pm

Re: Re:
No, 2 million visits from engaged people. that averages out to 5.5k visits a day from engaged people. Considering the number of repeat posters (myself included) that means maybe a couple of thousand real fans. Everyone else is a drive by.
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teka (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:23pm

Re:
actually, by almost any medium's metric, catching 2 out of 11 is pretty high praise.

Spam (hoping for one sucker out of a million) and other e-advertising aside, being able to engage that type of audience is something any content producer should be hoping to match.
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:27pm

Re: Re:
Being a troll isn't apparent?
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Jay (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:39pm

That is a LOT of data...

Wow, looks like this was a good year for this site. I kinda like that I stumbled upon it by sheer luck and circumstance. It's great to see a good community forming with the growth of TD. Good job Mike and co!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:42pm

Re: Re: Re:
Let me add this: With 80% of the users being drive-by visitors, the remaining 20% average 3 pages each. For a site with 20 or so posts on the front page, it is sort of shocking that so few people actually appear to go any deeper. Even with all the self-links and inside links on the site, even people who do do more than drive by don't appear to be very engaged. Based on what I see here in comments, the "hardcore fans" (and hardcore dissenters) represent maybe a few hundred people. Everything else is just in passing, mostly people who appear to have been mislead by search terms, or linked from other sites for reference only. They don't stay, and those that do stay don't do much.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:46pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
You've just described the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:48pm

Re: Re:
Sorry, I will correct this. The biggest traffic period was the old "TSA groping your junk" freak out. TD traffic was up about 5 times normal for a very short period of time. Outside of a few major freakout times, TD actually appears to be somewhat on the decline. The site also loses much of it's traffic over the weekends because TD can't seem to figure out how to make posts appear on the weekends.
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monkyyy, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:53pm

Re: Re: Random evil thought
that was the 5th post of yours i saw, on this one article, out of 20 ish, trying to win next year a little much?
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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:53pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nicely done. You just built rounded statistics based on presumptive terms formed from definitions of phrases that have not been agreed upon (drive by visitors) to pull a rather inconsequential number from nowhere that seems to do nothing but attempt to squash the plain fact: Techdirt, an already rather prominent site relatively speaking, experienced significant traffic growth.

I don't know who you are, but you should consider a career in politics....
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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:55pm

Re: Re: Re: Random evil thought
I plan to beat Mike....
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 2:57pm

Re: Re: Re:
[Citation Needed]
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bdhoro (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 3:04pm

LOL
This post WOULD have a hilarious comment thread like this. Kudos to the Anonymous Coward for making sure this blog doesn't stay too one sided.
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The Invisible Hand (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 3:06pm

+1 TechDirt. I'm glad to be part of the community.
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 3:31pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Random evil thought
In this one post alone, apparently...
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The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 3:42pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Note how he pretty much skipped right over lies and damned lies? Go big or go home!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 3:42pm

Re: LOL
This blog is always too one sided and continues to be.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
J Kimball (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 3:52pm

My .cx domain
My personal domain which hosts a few service me and some friends use is a .cx domain which has definitely accessed techdirt using an IP with reverse pointers to the domain. I wonder if this domain was the single Christmas Island user. (Ada.cx)
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 3:55pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Go look at a site like Quantcast. Look at the peak days, match them to the peak posts are noted above by TD. the TSA groping is certainly significant, and represents one outlandish peak.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 4:02pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Actually, "drive by visitors" is a widely used term when describing internet traffic. You look at things like the bounce rate (people who view a single page only before leaving) and you look at the time on site (average of 2.3 minutes or so for TD, remarkably low).

For comparison, CNN.COM, a news site, has a bounce rate of only 40%, and a time on site nearing 6 minutes (from the same source). Even the Drudgereport, which is all but 100% links off the site, has a lower bounce rate.

With an 80% bounce rate, people have one look at the page and leave. That is never a good thing, it would indicate that they were brought there by accident, by blind link, or perhaps by misleading search engine results. Considering that TD places high for things like "the pirate bay" and other related topics, it shouldn't be a shock that the bounce rate is so high.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 4:38pm

Re: Re: Re: Winner!
*shakes fist*

One day, Dark Helmet, One day...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Paul Hobbs (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 5:35pm

Re: Winner!
Sheesh! Both of you - get a real job, would ya?!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 6:35pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Right...except that looking at the Quantcast graph for "All" shows generally static/stable (or very slightly increasing) traffic up until...2010, where the traffic increases substantially.

Oops.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 6:36pm

Re: Re:
There is no pissing in anyones cheerios, just making the numbers make sense. TD presented numbers in a manner that makes the site look way more popular than it really is. The reality is a core of a few thousand people a day, not much more. That is still very good, but not stunningly amazing.

If you want to play the visit game, drudge gets more visits in a day than TD gets in almost the last two years. Scale is really important.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 6:46pm

Re: Winner!
Hehe, you two contributed ~1.5% of Techdirt comments each
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Marcus Carab (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 6:47pm

Re: Next Year...
Also, best ratio of funny/insightful comments to untagged comments
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Marcus Carab (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 6:58pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Techdirt has a huge number of RSS readers (still their number one source of traffic) and RSS pulls multiple articles in a single "pageview". RSS-heavy sites always have higher natural bounce rates.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Hephaestus (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 7:05pm

Re: Winner!
Bite my hairless white german ass ... ROFLMAO ... dude I want a recount !!!!
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average_joe (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 7:28pm

Wow, I'm #7? Guess that makes me #1 if you split us into pro-IP and anti-IP. :)
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Alias (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 7:36pm

Top commenter
I think your numbers are in error. I'm betting anonymous posted the most comments. Just sayin'. That guy has way to much time on his hands and too many points of view to be taken seriously anyway. :D
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 8:16pm

Good job, and I hope you continue to grow and make 2011 a better year. Keep up the good work and (late) happy new year!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 8:27pm

Re: Re: Re:
and what are the numbers for your site? What is your site?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 8:27pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
You must be jealous that you can't get an audience like Mike can.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2011 @ 8:38pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Unless tracking is done on the RSS page, it is unlikely that RSS pulls with change the count much.

If it does, then the numbers are even worse, because that coiuld just be automated bots reading stuff that is never seen. So that 11 million could be 100 of us actually using the site, and the rest bots pulling pages and being ignored.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 12 Jan 2011 @ 9:53pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Techdirt has a huge number of RSS readers (still their number one source of traffic) and RSS pulls multiple articles in a single "pageview". RSS-heavy sites always have higher natural bounce rates.

Yeah, we had discussed whether or not it was worth including that. A large percentage of our readership never visits the actual site, and just reads it in RSS. Those numbers don't count in the total number of visitors at all, but significantly increase the number of people who actually read what we write.
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PaulT (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 1:52am

Re:
You'd have to define those terms first, since most people you argue with aren't so much "anti-IP" as they are anti-the way it's enforced at the present time...

Oh and I have nearly 1000 comments? Not bad considering I usually only post here during downtime at work!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2011 @ 5:00am

Re: LOL
In fact, I'm surprised AC isn't on the top-posting list. He's one of the busiest people here.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2011 @ 5:18am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
ACtually, increases early in the year, and sort of fades down as the year continues. Outside of the TSA bump, things are actually on a slow decline now. The peak day (tuesday or wednesday) is not offset by how low the weekends are. TD would likely have much more traffic and many more daily visitors if they didn't didn't ignore 28% of the week.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2011 @ 5:22am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think you haven't realized: much of the "audience" is here for people like me, not just for the original posts. TD knows that. When Darryl is more active, the site is busier. When there are no nay-sayers in the crowd, activity drops. TD knows this as well.

Think about it. Without people like me, this would have been a "wow, TD is great thread" with maybe a couple of dozen comments. Instead, I create a CWF moment, which keeps all you guys coming back.

TD knows.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 5:40am

Re: Re: Winner!
"Sheesh! Both of you - get a real job, would ya?!"

I have two jobs, actually, and a hobby that requires a great deal of time and energy as I'm trying to turn it into a profession. Fortunately, all three involve me sitting in front of a computer for long periods of time and I have a very cool boss that realizes that working his employees like a slave makes for a bad workforce....
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Jimr (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 5:41am

Only 2,277 more comment to finish first.... That is if Dark Helmet gets lazy and can not keep it up.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2011 @ 6:14am

Re: Re: Winner!
I wanted to see top users by comment *value*
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average_joe (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 7:12am

Re: Re:
My label isn't perfectly accurate either. I'm pretty much indifferent about it, but around here, that's "pro-IP." Oh well.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2011 @ 9:04am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Free labor.
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nasch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 9:30am

Re: Winner!
Top 10 for me! w00t!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 9:32am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Random evil thought
Hm, if I reply to every single one of your comments, and also post some of my own...
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Mike Masnick (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 11:04am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
ACtually, increases early in the year, and sort of fades down as the year continues. Outside of the TSA bump, things are actually on a slow decline now.

None of this is true. We increased almost every month. There was a spike in July, so the following two months were a little lower, but other than that each month was higher than the last.

Contrary to your theory, there was no "TSA bump." This should be kind of obvious from the fact that out of the top 10 traffic stories, only one was about the TSA.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 11:07am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think you haven't realized: much of the "audience" is here for people like me, not just for the original posts. TD knows that. When Darryl is more active, the site is busier. When there are no nay-sayers in the crowd, activity drops. TD knows this as well.

Also not true. As noted in this very post, comments is rarely a good indicator of actual traffic.

Nice theory, but factually incorrect.
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 4:00pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Random evil thought
It won't matter, because I'll reply to all of yours and his and Heph's just for fun. :P
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 4:03pm

Within the US, just looking at states...

Just out of curiosity, how many (or what percentage) were from Oklahoma?

Also, I'm not sure whether to be happy that I made the top ten list, or sad that I didn't make the top five. :P
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btrussell (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 4:17pm

Re: Cool Stats
Website Worth: $2,573,444.91

Daily Pageviews: 1,175,089

Daily Ads Revenue: $3,525.27
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nasch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 4:27pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Random evil thought
Argh, I'll have to come up with a new plan! Damn you, Rose! *Colbert-style fist shake* ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!
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nasch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 4:27pm

Re:
Consider it a challenge for 2011. ;-)
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 4:31pm

Re: Re:
Nah, I'm going to pretend I don't know about it, so it doesn't affect my number of postings. It would be sad to be a top five poster if I published useless, stupid comments to get there. Too close to Darryl/TAM territory for me. :P
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 4:33pm

Hey, next year, how about telling us which commentors had the most LOL and Insightful comments? That would be a more interesting list than comment volume. :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike Masnick (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 5:25pm

Re:
Just out of curiosity, how many (or what percentage) were from Oklahoma?

Oklahoma was 30th on the list of visitors from a state, so in the bottom half... You can in after Utah, Kentucky and South Carolina, but beat out Alabama, Iowa and Nevada (among others...)
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 6:54pm

Re: Re:
After Utah, Kentucky, and S. Carolina, huh? Sadly, that is our place in line on many other lists. :P
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jan 2011 @ 9:29pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Perhaps you want to look at:

http://www.techdirt.com/search.php?q=tsa&tid=&aid=&start=30&searchin=stories

It isn't a question of a single story. It is a question of a group of stories over a very short period of time.

Then look at:

http://www.quantcast.com/techdirt.com

Pretty clear that right in mid November, there is a sudden peak. As that story has died away (even as you try to re-pump it every couple of days), traffic has died back down. Basically, you start out 2011 with about the same traffic you started 2010 with (open it out to a year to see, the "week" setting gives a pretty clear indication.

One of the great things about Quantcast is that it is using code you put on your pages, which means it is pretty accurate. You might want to consider putting that stuff private before you make your next big stats claim :)
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Mike Masnick (profile), 13 Jan 2011 @ 10:23pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
A friendly suggestion. When arguing with someone about data, perhaps do not claim to know more than the person who has the actual data when you do not. You will only look foolish.

It isn't a question of a single story. It is a question of a group of stories over a very short period of time.

And yet, if you were correct that that drove traffic then (1) you would see more such stories in those top stories, but you don't and (2) after the TSA stories died down in December, you would see a decrease in traffic -- but we did not. Contrary to your claims, December had more traffic than November.

Pretty clear that right in mid November, there is a sudden peak. As that story has died away (even as you try to re-pump it every couple of days), traffic has died back down. Basically, you start out 2011 with about the same traffic you started 2010 with (open it out to a year to see, the "week" setting gives a pretty clear indication.

You are relying on data that is presented in a way that is not clearly readable, such that you are making a number of false assumptions. There was one day in November which had a large spike in traffic (not, mind you, for a TSA story), and that distorts the graph due to the scale of the graph.

As stated above, your assumption that traffic died down after that peak is incorrect. December was significantly larger than November and that's EVEN THOUGH the last two weeks of December are traditionally down times, due to the holidays, as they were again this year.

Finally, again, you amusingly cannot see the details on Quantcast due to the scale, but I can look directly at our actual log file data, and tell you that January of this year is up significantly from January of last year, despite your claims to the contrary.

One of the great things about Quantcast is that it is using code you put on your pages, which means it is pretty accurate. You might want to consider putting that stuff private before you make your next big stats claim :)

One of the better things about having the actual log files is that it's even more accurate, and does not rely on oddly scaled drawings that might confuse those who do not understand the data.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Jan 2011 @ 5:51am

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"There was one day in November which had a large spike in traffic (not, mind you, for a TSA story)"

I think I'm going to regret asking this, but was there one story that WAS responsible in Nov. for a significant traffic spike?
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A Dan (profile), 14 Jan 2011 @ 7:34am

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Something Assange-related perhaps? Or maybe the Steve Jobs figurine?
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Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Jan 2011 @ 7:54am

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I was just wondering if that Colleen Doran article I wrote that apparently pissed off half of the comic creator world had anything to do w/it....
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Mike Masnick (profile), 14 Jan 2011 @ 8:58am

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I was just wondering if that Colleen Doran article I wrote that apparently pissed off half of the comic creator world had anything to do w/it....

Don't get too big a head. :) That story did well, but it was the 19 Senators story...
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