Derek Gordon, vice president of Technorati, reports that just over 99% of blogs receive no hits. If he isn’t pulling the statistic from his posterior, it’s a mighty sad fact—the blogosphere is a sea of bottled messages.
Technorati is tracking the sum of blogs—a figure that increased by 16% in the last two months—and Gordon predicts, “It’s likely the number of registered blogs will one day exceed the number of people who have internet access.” What’s more, the number of registered blogs, he says, may one day exceed the total population of our planet.
How can that be? Gordon explains many people have many blogs and many of those blogs are inactive. To be called active, a blog needs one new post a week, and, by that definition, only 25% are active.
I’m part of that 25%. And blogstats tell me I’m part of the less than 1% as well.
However, I’m not sure being a statistical exception means much. Most people don’t need Gordon’s numbers. They see the blog ocean as awash in self-absorbed, naval-gazing solipsists who like to write more than they like to read, who’d rather speak than listen. If I tell someone I have a blog, a message sometimes lurks behind their response, “Oh, you’re one of those, are you?”
One of my colleagues said in so many words, “Oh, who reads that dreck?”
And I don’t mind. I like to read and I like to listen, but I am also, at times, a self-absorbed, naval-gazing solipsist. Everyone is. The urge to express yourself can overpower you. You have a vision of the world you believe is your own and, at the same time, something others might appreciate or understand. Your misery wants company—and so do your other feelings. You can’t find a place to speak or a person to listen.
Not everyone is happy about the Thoreauian quiet desperation that compels blogging, but that state is also oddly inspiring. Look how many blogs hang onto a hope of being heard—as of November 1, 2007, 109.2 million.
Whether I receive hits or not, I’m a message bottler too, the author of whiney posts and spouting-off posts and silly posts and know-it-all posts and posts that really go nowhere. Naturally, I think about readers as I write—I am trying to write well—but I’m pleasing myself too. It’s a bonus if anyone thinks I’m worth reading, and comments are gifts.
I have my own statistics. Recently, one of my posts went over 1,000 hits. Who can know if that figure means I’ve been glimpsed by 1,000 Google nomads or if I’ve written something meaningful to someone other than myself. Likely, it’s between those extremes, but does it matter? When it comes to blogging, which is more important—aspiration or success? Would it be better if, having something to say, we kept it to ourselves?
I think I’d rather be among the bottlers than counting them.
Filed under: Aesthetics, American Life, Blog Stats, Blogging, Culture, Essays, Gratitude, Hope, Human Nature, Ideas, Identity, Life, Longing, Musings, Opinion, Society, Statistics, Thoreau, Thoughts, Writing
Thank you for cataloging a lot of my joys and my frustrations with the blogosphere. Once again it is the long tail at work–I LOVE reading your blog, and I regularly read 8 or 10 others. The rest of those millions and millions? No interest, or very little.
The positive I see is the network that spontaneously spawns just by putting yourself out there. I now have interesting contacts all over the globe who, like me, care about many of the same issues. Our connection is less personal than it is content-driven, but it is a quick and easy method of self-selection that does produce quality feedback and meaningful exchange.
Like anyone in the arts, you can’t focus on the millions of other practitioners. Your job is to make sure your work is clear, open and consistently coming from an authentic place. And in the meantime, this world–where it is headed and what it is capable of delivering–is still a work in progress.
For the reasons you stated so articulately, I think we’re in an exciting time. Perhaps I’m too idealistic, but the contacts and connections seem the chief advantage of the web over conventional publication. The contacts you make may be less personal, but the writing also seems less entangled in the mess that surrounds “getting your work out there” these days. To me, it feels a little more organic, a little more intrinsically motivated. It’s pretty to think so, anyway.
I also do know there’s some dreck out there, but the practioners’ impulses are good…and I’m always surprised at what I find. Some of the sites I’ve found, like your site and a few others, are wonderful and have meant the world to my own practice. Thanks, as always, for your comment —D
I’m obsessive sometimes – which post had the 1,000 plus hits? If I missed I need to know.
You are the ultimate introspective writer, D. You think about thinking. Which is why I know I’ll always have a new concept to mull over when I visit here.
Dreck? I bet he blogs. He’s a closet blogger, a lurker. No doubt about it. Anyway, dreck is my new favorite word. So many rhymes for it!
It’s actually pretty funny to think of this person as a closet blogger—I’d send everyone searching for THAT blog.
The post I was talking about was “Does Writing MAKE us lie?” and, it’s odd, I reread it recently and thought about why it might attract so many visitors. The title? The subject? Have curious (or thieving) students found it?
To me, that post is like most of the rest, arising from an impulse to sort something out. When my students despair because they see themselves as slower or not as clever as classmates, I try to remind them that it’s not a race. Something good comes of thinking if you can allow the necessary time and be patient and receptive. Some of them discover they enjoy thinking, as I have. I’m just grateful to have a place to do my thinking and thoughtful readers…like you. Thanks, D.
That is an interesting figure, however considering the source (Technorati), I would question this as I spend many hours writing Aquatic Research blogs and other related blogs and find most never appear on Technorati yet are very well hit (over 200 per day). Technorati seems to not get very relevant searches either as compared to Google Blog Search.
Carl
http://aquarium-answers.blogspot.com/
I thought the number was suspicious too, and I wondered how Technorati was classifying “blogs.” They could be missing many of sites that don’t fit the label or create their own classification. I’m always wary of statistics, but these also struck me as strange because…why would Technorati publish figures suggesting the futility of blogging? It seemed a little like the media doing stories about The Media. Thanks for visiting. —D
Hi, I read dreck, that’s why I’m here. HAR.
Cruising the “thoughts” tag brought me here. 1,000 hits. Wow. Very cool. I’d like to know which one too.
A colleague says that it used to be everyone had 15 minutes of fame, but now everyone has 15 friends via the web.
I haiku too – but nothing serious.
cya.
The post was “Does Writing MAKE Us Lie?”
I could see how having 15 web friends could be as good as having 15 real friends…well, maybe not 15 real friends, but there must be some conversion factor that would figure it out for me. In any case, I’m grateful for the ease of meeting people of similar interests, similar concerns, similar feelings. I much prefer that to fame.
And haiku are a nice way to exorcise some quiet and anonymous desperation. “Desperate haiku” is a contradiction in terms, and so you get a little quiet every day.
As for dreck, hey, I can be as drecky as the best of them. Thanks for visiting —D
Your bottled writing and quiet desperation means a world to many of your faithful, slow and silent readers. Thank you D.
No, thank you—it’s good to know some sympathetic readers are out there. Your comment is just what any writer would want to hear, and I deeply appreciate it. —D
hi: here is one more hit to your blog’s health!
Thanks! —D
One thousand hits in a day is seriously impressive. I question the figures, too. I’ve started a few blogs now over the past few years, and 99% get no hits? I can’t imagine that. I have found that at least a few (maybe very few) people find you as soon as you hit publish, even before you comment elsewhere.
Not in one day! It took months to get up to 1,000. The Technorati numbers are strange. I really don’t understand why people do or don’t read blogs, and I’m afraid I might be paralyzed if I thought too much about it…better just to do what you do. How else could you do it if you hope to post with any frequency? —D
Well, as usual you have waken me from my daily mental torpor- which is why i do value and read all your posts, even if I do not always comment, sensibly or otherwise. The bottles that wash ashore the sands of the internet shore, are all kinds. Those containing dreck, I tend to discard. Others may not find the contents as such, and it is for them to pick up those bottles and treasure the examination.
In a sense, does it really matter how any hits a post gets? I am not too worked up about whether or not my stuff is widely read. But what I do value is the knowledge that some sensitive souls I might wish for real-time friends sometimes read some of my own dreck. There is huge satisfaction in this, much more so than hitting some kind of wowing number of readership. G
I don’t think it matters how many hits you get, but it’s hard not to notice once you know the numbers are there. I’m happy with a few sympathetic readers, occasional comments—the rest is writing. All those guys who play at the baseball fantasy camps in the summer, I sometimes feel that’s what I’m doing. —D
There are so many hit factors I am completely baffled. I’ve given up trying to understand the statistical component. For example, when I post images, I find the bulk of my hits are people just searching for that particular image. Some linger, some glance and run. So are images artificially inflating my belief that I have an interesting blog? I think in fact it does. But even an artificial boost to my ego is a boost nonetheless. I’ll take it. But then I won’t start image-stuffing (like the old phone-booth stuffing) to see how many hits I could get that way, though it would be kind of amusing. My stupid sitemeter doesn’t break down stats by posts, just by days anyway.
I never thought of whether people were retrieving the image—that could be it. I’ll keep trying to convince myself it’s the writing though. I could do with a little LESS statistical information—less distracting!—but it’d be much tougher to do without comments. That would be lonely. —D
Maybe we run in heavy hitting blog circles, as most of the bloggers I connect with get plenty of hits, it seems. But I also see a bunch in the WP news page or where have you that have zero comments. I do wonder if those are simply new and not developing a readership/network, or if they exist for other reasons. If there are hundreds of thousands of new blogs added to the overall number each day, then it makes sense that the number not-read would soon outstrip the number read.
Or, maybe the blog that’s never read is even more cathartic than the one that is read. In a never-read blog, you can say anything you want, write the letters you should send but go ahead and hit Publish.
tiv, our highest hit post is an image of a rainbow. I doubt any of those people hang around and peruse the blog, but it does drive our stats through the roof. I mean, it’s not even that good an image. But, it pops up for folks for some reason
I wonder if many people try blogging and then abandon it, leaving behind sites with one or only a few posts. I do think the never-read blog (interesting title) could be cathartic. My students often say, “Maybe the author was only writing for herself / himself.” Usually it’s to tell me that we should be analyzing or interpreting their work, but I think they see that writing CAN just be for yourself in a way I forget. For many of them, the personal writing they do is for them…and a few friends.
Hmmm. I don’t remember this rainbow. Maybe I’ll check it out. —D
I am getting over 500 hits a day because of the word vagina. Funny and stupid. It is weird the whole how-people-come-to-visit thing. The net is a strange and random place and that is a good thing , for the most part.
xx
I guess that means I have to use the word too.
Some of the posts I like best have received very few visits and some of the ones that people visit a lot are not my proudest work. I don’t know what to do with that. Either I’m not qualified to judge my own writing (possible) or net-attention follows tides and patterns impossible to discern. When you figure out which it is, please let me know! —D
[...] Some weeks ago, when I was celebrating a post that had gone over 1,000 visitors, one comment asked if I was sure it was for the post and not the picture. Looking more closely, I could see she was right. Many referrals were from Google images, and I felt foolish. How could I have been so silly as to believe so many people wanted to read an essay about Lucy Grealy or a poem about Homer? How could I have thought those posts—out of the over 250 posts I’ve written since March—would be so popular? [...]