New Look

[Robert_Moriyama]

LOL? You may laugh now, but if you smell hot paraffin, RUN! :o

Robert "Purveyor of Cryptic Warnings" M.

[kailhofer]

According to the website stats, there have been over 6000 unique hits since the new look came online. As of yesterday, the May issue has been accessed in over 75 countries.

Missed this message earlier. Are "unique hits" the same as unique visitors?


Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

Based on what I observed in Nate's Inaugural Challenge topic, it looks like the "Modify" option may go away some time after the initial posting or last modification (i.e., it may assume that if you don't make corrections immediately, you SHOULDN'T, lest you confuse people who have already read your post). That's why most Challenge entries had to be reposted rather than edited in situ.

Robert "Blowing smoke from various orifices as usual" M.

[kailhofer]

Yes, that's true. I just looked again. Let's see if I can post the numbers...

Month Unique visitors Number of visits Pages Hits Bandwidth
Apr 2007 1787 2917 13745 49809 1.43 GB
May 2007 5482 10132 42565 256937 2.41 GB

Total 7269 13049 56310 306746 3.84 GB


How's that?

Dan

Wow. Nearly 5500 this month so far. That sounds fantastic.

But... I'm having trouble reconciling that many visitors to the site and only getting about 15 or 20 people who seem to participate in discussions during any given month. That's less than three tenths of one percent.

I mean, you get 100 people in a room, step back and watch how many conversations start. How can 55 times that many not talk more? I realize that this is actually a very busy forum compared to many magazines, (more than twice as many posts as Strange Horizons) but I just can't wrap my head around this. How can so many people love to read great fiction and so few want to talk about it?

It seems like there some other bit of information missing. Is there any way that non-humans (spambots, etc) contribute to this total? Does this seem puzzling to anyone else?

Nate

[doc]

Yes, that's true. I just looked again. Let's see if I can post the numbers...

Month Unique visitors Number of visits Pages Hits Bandwidth
Apr 2007 1787 2917 13745 49809 1.43 GB
May 2007 5482 10132 42565 256937 2.41 GB

Total 7269 13049 56310 306746 3.84 GB


How's that?

Dan

Wow. Nearly 5500 this month so far. That sounds fantastic.

But... I'm having trouble reconciling that many visitors to the site and only getting about 15 or 20 people who seem to participate in discussions during any given month. That's less than three tenths of one percent.

I mean, you get 100 people in a room, step back and watch how many conversations start. How can 55 times that many not talk more? I realize that this is actually a very busy forum compared to many magazines, (more than twice as many posts as Strange Horizons) but I just can't wrap my head around this. How can so many people love to read great fiction and so few want to talk about it?

It seems like there some other bit of information missing. Is there any way that non-humans (spambots, etc) contribute to this total? Does this seem puzzling to anyone else?

Nate

Well, the problem here is discussing numbers out of context. Web statistics don't always mean what they seem to say.

In this case, a "unique visitor" is determined by IP address, brower type, and other information that the log file collects when you come to the page...essentially, a "fingerprint" that marks you as you. But, since IP addresses are dynamic, the server doesn't expect that everyone who comes here from a single IP is always the same person. Usually, it considers that for some period of time, say 24 hours, that is probably the same person.

Looking at the daily logs is actually somewhat more revealing. Aphelion consistently logs between 300 and 600 unique visitors every day. Since it's unlikely that everyone come sot the zine every day, I'd estimate that the Total Aphelion Readership is probably somewhere on the order of between 500 and 760 people.

Do only 5% of those people participate in the lettercol? Yes, that sounds about right too, though I can't quantify that easily. It's very hard to count the lurkers, since they don't tend to make their presence felt -- if they did, they wouldn't be lurkers.

One of the things the new template does is *ensure* that every story has the Forum link in it. That, plus the change of name away from the perhaps confusing "Lettercol" and the more persistent navigation menu, will hopefully draw more people over to this section of the zine.

[kailhofer]

So, if you don't mind my asking, what's the goal circulation number?

Where, ultimately, would you like Aphelion to be?


Nate

[doc]

Let's really not start that discussion again, please?

[doc]

Wow - ya leave the 'zine for just a minute - okay a year and a half - AND WHEN YOU COME BACK FOR A PEEK, IT'S GORGEOUS!

I like the beautiful new format.

Thanks!

And welcome back!!