Since June 2000
Number of words: 344,250
Words per month: 5,737
Words per day: 188
Number of entries: 1,761
Average words per entry: 195
Entries per month: 29
Entries per day: 0.96
Prior to August 2002
Number of words: 81,399
Words per month: 3,130
Words per day: 104
Number of entries: 710
Average words per entry: 114
Entries per month: 27
Entries per day: 0.91
Since August 2002
Number of words: 262,851
Words per month: 7,510
Words per day: 250
Number of entries: 1,051
Average words per entry: 250
Entries per month: 30
Entries per day: 1
Number of comments: 2665
Comments per entry: 2.53
I don’t usually do statistical analysis. Unlike some people I don’t really find it that fascinating to crunch the numbers, but I thought that rather than do yet another blog birthday post I’d have an analytical look at what I’ve produced over the last five years.
I admit I’m somewhat disappointed not to have reached a million words but I’m a third of the way there. At the current rate I’ll hit it around 2015 and the terrible thing is I’ll probably still be blogging then.
I’m rather pleased to have posted, on average, once every day despite taking a whole month off last December.
The stats are split into two sections for a reason. In August 2002 I’d just switched from Blogger to Movable Type, had come out of a long-ish term relationship and was about to enter a period of work-related stress and depression. Those three things will make a decent blogger out of pretty much anyone, I reckon. I have a constant conflict over whether to keep those first 26 months of posts (so people will know how long I’ve been at this) or to delete them (so that no-one will ever read them again) but the former piece of vanity always wins out. Quantity, not quality in this game. Anyway, back to the stats.
I was thinking that my average posting length would have increased since in my mind I’ve rarely written less that 1000 words since Spring 2003 and the Blogger posts were generally quite short while the Linklog takes care of the random linkage since July 2003. Not to mention the enormity of the Farmblog, but it’s still down there at 250 per entry, and while that is double the Blogger entries it still seems too low. Guess I’m not as verbose as I thought.
Comments (which from the Blogger days are no more since they didn’t import) are as I expected. Most posts get 3-4 comments and while some get loads, more get none.
Um…
I guess I should really do a month-by-month analysis and draw a graph or something. But I can’t be arsed.
Happy fifth birthday, weblog of mine. And to everyone else from the elitist old school.
[Addendum: According to the utterly-skewed-by-Google-referrers visitor stats which bear no relation to my actual regular readership and which I've therefore been ignoring these last couple of years, I've had 273,772 Unique Visitors since November 2000 providing 332,115 actual hits, which seems a little low, though it does mean I've had one page-load for very nearly each word I've written. Most of them come here on a Tuesday between 8 and 9pm. And... um...]
“Happy fifth birthday, weblog of mine. And to everyone else from the elitist old school.”
This ‘old school’ seems to be a recurring theme recently. maybe you should analyse that a write a blog entry. A pop psychologist might view this as a desperate need to be recognised as part of an elite grouping you feel has snubbed you :)
“Self-appraisal often makes us sad.” (Funny Face)
Dave: Nah, it’s a sarcastic retort to those who might view it as a desperate need to be recognised as part of an elite grouping I alegedy feel has snubbed me.
And anyway, I am old school, whatever implications that may or may not have. The archives speak for themselves. ;)
The archives do speak for themselves. They’re often the most interesting, the first few posts. I could say a few cliched things about trying to find one’s ‘voice’ but I won’t. I’m amazed that it took you 26 months, though.