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March 7, 2004
TT and OGIC: Survey says
We've now looked at all the e-mail sent in response to our recent request that the readers of "About Last Night" write to tell us how often and when they read this blog.Most of you, it turns out, read us daily, and most of our daily readers visit "About Last Night" more than once a day. No particular time of day stood out in your responses, though our Site Meter says that our peak hours coincide roughly with lunchtime. We can see the wave of fresh hits rolling across the U.S. time zones between noon and three p.m. each weekday.
Most bloggers don't post on weekends, but we started doing it several months ago and have kept it up. Comparatively few of you, however, read us on Saturdays and Sundays, a fact we already knew from the Site Meter. Even so, we still draw roughly 1,500 page views each weekend, which is unexpectedly high. (All told, "About Last Night" received about 44,000 page views in February.)
Though neither one of us uses an RSS feed, we decided to make our postings available via XML syndication, but so far it seems that very few of you read "About Last Night" via RSS, and three or four readers wrote to say that they didn't know what it was. (To find out, go here.)
One of the reasons we asked you to write was to find out whether it makes sense for us to continue posting every day. It isn't easy, but judging by your e-mail, it's definitely worth the trouble. Frankly, we were astonished by the number of daily communicants. So we'll keep our noses to the grindstone (though we might slack off a bit on weekends, if you don't mind).
Finally, we want to share these snippets from the mail you sent us:
- "I'm a regular reader, usually during my lunch hour. Your cultural conversations with the cerebral pin-up OGIC makes each work day go easier."
- "first thing in the west coast morning I check for email, then jump to the browser and read your blog later in the day, sometimes several times, and especially when i'm procrastinating, i check to see if anything new has been posted daily? yes -- even on weekends, and even when you say you won't be posting cuz you're writing for $ or sleeping or..."
- "I think I first found my way there via TMFTML, but as a Chicagoan it may have been through something about Our Girl--I can't quite remember."
(We shudder to think which of Mr. TMFTML's postings brought you from there to here!)
- "Here's my online routine every morning: First, check my e-mail, even though I don't need a penis enlarger, either. Then, look at the day's Dilbert column, see what's being reviewed at Classics Today, scope out the new stuff at ArtsJournal, and from there see what you and Our Girl have posted in the past 24 hours....I scroll through other blogs only very rarely, because I just don't have that kind of time. I do occasionally follow one of your links, but frankly I'd rather settle in for five or six or ten of your solid paragraphs than devote a few precious seconds of my time to the shorter and generally less substantial posts that typify much of what I've seen of blogdom. In other words, what I prefer to read on the screen more closely resembles what I'd find in a magazine or newspaper than a blurb on a book's dust jacket."
- "I try to read artsjournal.com everyday that I'm in my office (three days a week) – but sometimes I forget (I have a small infant – she has rendered my brain into mush). Thanks for requesting this information – it was a kick in the pants to me to drop you a note – I love your blog (and I love artsjournal.com)."
- "Within weeks of having discovered it, I'd read through the entire archive. (Certainly, I'm a natural-born completist, but the stimulating and witty entries kept me clicking happily and recommending the latest entries to my friends.)"
- "I read every day, usually late afternoon to early evening. I was coming only Monday through Friday until I realized that you both were submitting on weekends as well."
- "Last week I was in Japan on business, and the hotel had high speed access. Jet lag being what it is, I found myself reading ALN and other blogs at all different times of the day checking in way too many times. The internet became a touchstone."
- "I read AJ here in Rome, Italy ca. 8:15 A.M. local, daily, for ca. 30 mins. Have gotten hooked; big letdown when there's nothing to read or, alternatively, too much for the half-hour. Also appreciate the links."
- "I read daily M-F, directly, and more or less first thing upon arrival in the office (I check big headline news, read the blog, check one or two other things and then start work - as a lawyer I work when I have to, nights and weekends included, so a few minutes at the start of the day doesn't take time away from a client). If I don't have an early Friday breakfast meeting I read the WSJ Weekend Journal (your reviews included) at home over breakfast and then skim the blog at work. Sometimes I read what I want or all of it immediately, often I'll come back at lunch or during an afternoon break to read something that looked good but too long to read in the am. I have once or twice copied particularly good quotes and put them in my Palm memopad for later laughter or to remind myself that there is more to life than [whatever else I'm doing at the moment]."
- "Daily. In the morning. Before starting the painting for day, while slurping a bowl of cheerios. With an occasional afternoon or evening peek, if I need to get away from the canvas for a bit."
- "Old Manhattanite far from home. Thanks for being there and talking to us out here."
- "This started out so simply: ‘why sure, i check in every Tuesday and Friday am, scrolling back to check what i've missed' was what i started out to say. Then i started candidly reflecting back on how often i bopped into aboutlastnight two or three times a day -- when a subject seemed of interest and the thread continued on a theme. Or when you've gone back to Missouri, and i've gotten ‘sucked in' to the narrative that reflected a swath of my east central Ohio rural ambiance, checking daily if not more frequently. So the true answer is: twice a week, except when i don't, and then it's more often."
- "I read you guys's blog every work day (Tuesday thru Saturday), one of nine sites I visit daily. I go through them in a regular order, so yes, I'm reading it the same time every day (10ish, Eastern), and I have been since ALN Day One. Keep up the good work!"
- "Under normal circumstances, I visit your excellent blog every morning. When I am avoiding my own work, I visit it later in the day, as well."
- "First thing each day, usually...Sometimes I check later in the day to see if there's anything new. If I have to go a day or two I get withdrawal symptoms."
- "I tend to log on once a day, directly; generally in the morning, when I've finished gathering and responding to e-mail, but sometimes if I'm checking mail late in the day I'll check ALN too. Just to see if there are any thoughts in the blogosphere that would augment dinner-table conversation.... There almost always are."
- "I read you every morning while slurping coffee at my desk. Not Starbucks, which is scorched and trendy, but home ground good stuff. The closest Starbucks is 35 miles away, which means that we are so far from the caffeine renaissance that we've reached the enlightenment."
- "I read About Last Night whenever I can think of it, which comes close to almost daily. (Yes, we have the RSS-feed technology, but somehow I prefer the serendipity of coming to ALN via a link in another blog, or seeing ALN in a recently updated weblogs list, or just plain surfing.) If I miss a day, all the better...it means a bigger chunk of good stuff to sit down and enjoy."
- "I follow About Last Night through your RSS feed. I find it very annoying, however, that your feed provides only the headline. Since Arts Journal doesn't seem to carry advertising, is there any reason why you can't provide full text, or at least the first paragraph, in your feed as most other sites do?"
(We'll pass this on to the Gearhead-in-Chief at artsjournal.com.)- "So sad when you guys take a day off...."
- "It is a phenomenon of blogging that you begin to think you are on personal terms with bloggers you read every day. For example, I find myself remarking often to my wife something like, ‘Terry has the flu so he's in bed watching old movies instead of posting.' I'm wondering if other readers have the same feeling that they know their favorite bloggers. At any rate, I am glad to have you as a daily internet friend."
Needless to say, we feel exactly the same way about all of you.
Posted March 7, 2004 12:00 PM
