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An experiment

Experiment: the testing of an idea.

This post follows from my post on stats and posting. I do observe a number of pageviews from countries other than my own, and often wonder, how many people are really that free to read up a seemingly random blog? How many actually end up reading more than the first few lines?

I have decided to create a blog which I shall not publicise in any way. I shall put up seemingly random posts there, but not post the URL on Buzz, Facebook or Twitter, in other words, not thrust the blog upon my friends.

What do I hope to see from this experiment. I suppose that it would give me some idea about the number of people who happen to visit my blog from various sources, those who do not have the blog thrust upon them.

As to the question about how many people end up reading more than the first few lines, checking that would be much difficult. Can someone suggest a good method?

Why do I wish to do this experiment? Because I am hopelessly jobless.

Will I share my findings with you? Sure, if there is anything to share (besides the obvious No one wants to read my blog, boo-hoo).

Comments

  1. KM27 October 2011 at 18:43

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. KM27 October 2011 at 18:53

    i suggest, for the part where you want to count the people who actually do read more than 'the first few lines', setting up another webpage (which can keep a count of visits) with its hyperlink pasted in the main body of your posts. so, you have a number of people visiting your blog, and the number of people visiting your second blog/hyperlink. of course, there's always a number of stray visits if you choose another blog for the number of careful readers. but even that problem can be eliminated by averaging the number of stray visits to a blog (over a given time period), and subtracting it from the actual number you receive... also, ideally you can have a hyperlink for every line/sentence- but then that's why it is ideal, in the first place :P but 2-3 hyperlinks well placed should be good enough to serve the purpose of this 'experiment'

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  3. Skand Hurkat28 October 2011 at 01:03

    I would not really like to provide spurious links. It can be distracting for readers. Maybe I should rely on the quick feedback, and expect that people who have read the post in its entirety would take the pains to make one click to give feedback.

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  4. KM28 October 2011 at 13:24

    hey, but personal experience forces me to understand it this way- its easier to lure a reader into clicking a link than to get him writing a feedback (more so on a random post)... but ultimately, u ought to try it out. why not try 'An Experiment 1' and 'An Experiment 2'? then you can assign a way of counting based on ur results of above versions of 'An Experiment' and use it in the actual 'An Experiment' :P

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  5. KM28 October 2011 at 13:29

    btw, a major factor here will be to suitably camouflage the hyperlinks (no colours/highlights/explicit url's) to tempt the readers...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Skand Hurkat28 October 2011 at 14:34

    KM, what about just a one-click quick-feedback? It's rather like a vote: Did you or did you not like this article?

    ReplyDelete
  7. KM28 October 2011 at 15:01

    one needs a well concealed one-click feedback, such that only the patient readers are more likely to discover it... then it may work. but i can't help think- this experiment needs PATIENCE, certainly considerable amount of it!!

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