July 31, 2003
Quantifying the Blogosphere: The Value of a Link for Everyone Else?
In two earlier posts (here and here), I looked at the relationship between weblogs' traffic and the associated number of inbound links. Tonight, I look at the same relationship, but exclude from the analysis the top 25 most-visited weblogs in N.Z. Bear's sample with open Sitemeter statistics as of July 7, 2003. (These 25 websites account for almost exactly 2/3rd of all traffic for this sample of blogs.)
Once again, I find a highly statistically significant relationship between inbound links and traffic. However, for this sample of blogs each inbound link is correlated with an additional 2.3 visits per day, as compared to the 12 visits per day for the entire sample of blogs. This discrepancy may provide some evidence that, as Professor Volokh noted, traffic may cause links, or some other factor may cause both traffic and links.
For this smaller sample of 626 weblogs, controlling for the number of inbound links, I find that the number of months a blog has been in existence is positively correlated with the number of daily visits. Each additional month of blog-age is correlated with an additional 3.4 daily visits. This supports CGHill's suggested inertial effect.
Finally, after removing the most-visited sites and controlling for the number of inbound links and blog-age, I find that sites on BlogSpot are correlated with statistically significantly fewer daily visits (25 fewer visits per day) than sites hosted elsewhere. (The BlogSpot sites in the top 25 are: Eschaton (Atrios), Dave Barry's Blog, Howard Dean 2004, TBogg and Merde in France.)
Note that, for the full sample of blogs, these three variables "explain" 62% of the
variation in traffic; for this smaller sample, the corresponding number is only 43%.
For what it's worth...
July 30, 2003
Esmay, Cox & Forkum
Dean Esmay has an interesting, and well-illustrated, interview with editorial cartoonists and bloggers John Cox and Allen Forkum.
It's a good read.
July 27, 2003
Blogosphere Traffic Concentration
On Outside the Beltway, James Joyner has a look at N.Z. Bear's weblog traffic statistics and comments on the amount of traffic concentrated on the top blogs. (Clay Shirky wrote here on traffic concentration.)
Here's what the data looked like as of July 7, 2003:
As of that date (with Instapundit's traffic understated due to his vacation), the total average daily traffic of the top 10 sites (109,707 visits) exceeded that of the 671 other sites (102,500 visits).
Here's the cumulative amount of total traffic accounted for by each of the top 200 blogs. As noted, the top 10 account for more than 50% of all traffic. The top 50 account for more than 75% of all traffic and the top 200 shown here account for more than 92% of all traffic.
July 26, 2003
I Knew It!
You are...Condoleezza Rice, National Security
Advisor! Naturally brilliant, you are
successful and put your work first. Even
though you don't have as many tight personal
relationships as others, its a sacrifice you
are willing to make to pursue knowledge and to
faithfully serve in your duties. A keen
intellect and sense of purpose characterize
you.
What Political Diva Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
(via Betsy's Page.)
July 25, 2003
More Comment Squatting
Here's an earlier example of comment-squatting (referred to by "Max Power" as a "quasi-blog in the comments section" and about which I'd forgotten) where commenter GB makes a series of very interesting posts on the deaths of various philosophers.
And today, Paul has set-up shop in the comments to this post.
It's an idea the time for which has arrived. (And passed?)
July 24, 2003
46 Percent
Via Rand Simberg, see this FrontPage magazine piece on media credibility. Excerpt:
The Rasmussen survey of 1,000 adults found that 73 percent of Americans found their local newspapers to be reliable; 72 percent found Fox News reliable; 66 percent said the same of CNN; and 59 percent found the Wall Street Journal reliable. Just 46 percent of Americans found that information reported in the New York Times is reliable.
Ouch!
Comment Squatting
I've long wondered why non-bloggers don't take better advanatage of weblogs' comment sections as pseudoblogs of their own (e.g., "I heard the funniest joke today. I posted it here. Check it out and feel free to add your thoughts"). Some indulgence, of course, would be required for this to work.
This sort of happens on Bill Quick's site in his "OT and General Interest" posts.
Well, today, while reading Bloviating Inanities, it happened in this post.
So here's a thought: How about another blogger that lives and exists in your comments section? Like a Charlie Mccarthy type thing. Like a ventriloquist thingy? I don't know what I'm thinking- I should be writing this stuff over at my own blog...I could have something here. Here's one on the house since I'm rolling again:Q. What's brown, and sounds like a bell?
A. Dung!
See, a guy who lives your comments. You heard it here first. On Bill's blog...written by Paul. Who lives in the comments section. Like an unwanted child.
Hey, it's Paul from Sanity's Edge.
For the rest of the day I will be blogging exclusively in the comments section of Bloviating Inanities, specifically, here.
I hadn't anticipated someone with his own weblog comment-squatting, but this was surely a lack of imagination on my part.
Alas, it didn't last.
July 23, 2003
Listen Here
Hear Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV, center of the “yellowcake” non-scandal, address the “Education for Peace in Iraq Center” on June 14, 2003. Hear him:
· admit to being “pissed off;”
· predict American casualties of up to 20 per day in Iraq and the demise of Tony Blair’s government;
· predict greater anger in Iraq following the removal of Saddam than that of America after 9/11;
· claim we’ve found no terrorists in Iraq;
· predict that we may find weapons of mass destruction;
· call the “warmongers” “assholes;”
· claim we keep our assets in debt and mortgages (huh?);
· make side-by-side contradictory statements regarding Iran and North Korea;
· claim the “real agenda” for the war was to benefit Israel;
· call weapons of mass destruction a “flawed argument,” despite predicting that we may well find them;
· joke that he wants to run for governor of California on a secessionist ticket;
· predict, perhaps, a one percent increase in U.S. unemployment;
· predict President Bush may start another war to improve his reelection chances;
· cite the military demobilizations in Angola and Chad as examples we should follow in Iraq;
· ask, “wasn’t life simpler when all our President lied about was his sex life?”; and
· state that we’ll need to “roll” the lawn of democracy in Iraq for 600 years.
He also makes a few good points.
A recording of Wilson's remarks (mp3 format) can be downloaded here.
Who Knew It Was Illegal?
Zombyboy links to this story about two parents who've been arrested for letting their son and a friend ride a short distance in their car's trunk and expresses his disapproval. Excerpt:
"Obviously, there was a lot of danger there," Jordan said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "They're supposed to be in seat belts. If there would have been a rear-end collision, they could have been seriously injured. So we feel that it was reckless to put the kids in the trunk," Jordan said.
Back in the day, when I was in college, a group of us rented a car for a winter night's excursion from Boston to New Hampshire. The trip was, as they tended to be back then, oversubscribed. Rather than leaving a buddy behind ("leave no child..."), one brave soul offered to make the trip in the trunk of the rental car.
The trip itself, if memory serves, was a moderate success. The trunk-rider so enjoyed the ride that another friend sought to gain the experience on the return trip (the car was very crowded). He, too, seemed to enjoy it.
The Duthoys are charged with two counts each of child abuse, an offense that carries a sentence of 15 years. Mary Duthoy is also charged with two counts of reckless endangerment, and James Duthoy, who was driving, is charged with a count of second-degree assault and one count of reckless endangerment.The charges have stunned those who know the family. Mary Elizabeth Duthoy is a former teacher who volunteers as a den mother. James John Duthoy, a superintendent for a roofing company, is known as a model father.
I'm sure glad we didn't get caught. Bad friends. Bad. Bad.
July 22, 2003
July 21, 2003
Blog Days of Summer
If anyone's noticed, I apologize for the inactivity on this blog of late. Real life (in the form of work) has interfered with this little hobby. I expect things to return to normal in a few days with new updates to the Blogs around the World and Blogs around the U.S.A. projects.
Sorry, too, to those who have suggested additions to those posts -- most should be addressed in the next update.
In any event, I highly recommend this letter, posted on the great Winds of Change weblog, from a Special Operations soldier in Iraq.
July 18, 2003
Iraqi Aftermath Plan
Via a comment on LGF, MEMRI has published a translation of a letter from Iraq's "Comrade Head of Secret Services" that was originally published in Al-Hayat. Excerpt:
"Following on our secret letter No. (3870) of 1/19/2003. In the event of the downfall of the Iraqi leadership in the hands of the American, British, and Zionist forces, God forbid, it is incumbent on all the members of the agencies listed above to act in accordance with the instructions listed below[.]"
The letter goes on to list eleven requirements. Do they sound familiar?
Blogroll Dilemma
When I see that a site has added mine to its blogroll, I normally add a link to it to the Circle of Reciprocity over to the left as a gesture of recognition and thanks. (I may be missing a few.) I know I don't send many hits their way, but at least they have the consolation of knowing that, when I have spare time, they tend to be the first sites I read.
Now, I can't decide whether to include this one, where my site is classified as:
Blogs I don't read
very often but
whose authors
read blogs I like
to read, or else I
put here because
somebody told me
to so I could win
a contest
I'm in good company, so, in a way, I'm flattered. At least I'm not in a "Blogs that Suck" section, right? Or am I?
What to do?
I'm Embarrassed to Admit It
But I think I'm addicted. Egads!
(via Max Power. See also the comment by Lileks.)
July 17, 2003
Where Have All the Asterisks Gone?
Hmmm. Only four of the sites on my blogroll are indicating that they've been updated in the last three hours.
Is there a problem with Blogrolling.com? Or is 99 percent of the Blogosphere™ out drinking tonight?
Speaking of which...
Update: It seems to be the latter, as I now have an asterisk.
July 16, 2003
The Week's "Worst"
Kevin of Wizbang has posted the second weekly Bonfire of the Vanities, a self-selected catalog of a baker's dozen ex post facto embarrasing posts. His comments on the selections bring mirth.
I'd submit something from this site, but then I'd have to re-read the dreck. And so would he.
A View from the Top of the Blogosphere
The following chart shows the relationship between actual and predicted traffic for the top 25 blogs in N.Z. Bear's sample. For background, see here.
I've excluded from this sample the statistics for the site Detling House Memories, as I've been unable to verify the Sitemeter statistic and the visit-to-link ratio of 3,600 seems out-of-whack. If this exclusion is justified, I will need to re-do the numbers below to reflect this change. Argh! (N.Z. Bear?).
The sites for which the blue line tops the grey line are, in my parlance, "readers' blogs." Those in the opposite situation are "bloggers' blogs."
July 15, 2003
A Quantifying the Blogosphere Critique
In a comment to the post below, Dean Esmay wrote:
I believe I have found a profound error in Truth Laid Bear's site statistics ranking which may render your data questionable. I'm going to write something up about it tonight.
Dean's thoughtful post is now up here.
He identifies as a possible issue the fact that Sitemeter only counts traffic to pages on which its code is placed. In his case, he only included the code on his main page (i.e., not on his individual or archived pages). He notes that, due to this, Sitemeter failed to count 63% of his traffic.
If many of the other sites included also count only visits to their main page, this could have the effect of skewing the analysis. As a quick check, I chose 10 blogs at random from the sample and checked whether Sitemeter was included on their archive pages. In all 10 cases, they were. (This is hardly dispositive, but I do have to get to work.) Thus, if this sample is representative, the traffic-counting issue may be less of a problem than Dean feared.
Dean also wrote:
His analysis is interesting, because he believes there are some blogs which are "blogger's blogs" (mainly only read by other bloggers) versus "popular blogs" that are read more by the masses. Unfortunately, while I am certain there is some truth to this, I'm not convinced we have enough data to be basing any firm conclusions upon.
I would characterize "bloggers' blogs" and "readers' blogs" slightly differently. The former, like my site, are relatively over-linked given their readership, the latter, relatively under-linked. (Alternatively, the former are relatively under-read given the generosity of their linkers...) Of late, most of my readers have been Google™ searchers rather than other bloggers. Not that I blame the other bloggers...
In any event, thanks to Dean Esmay for pointing out the issue and for linking to the analysis.
Update: James Joyner also has an unsurprisingly insightful post on the topic.
July 14, 2003
Quantifying the Blogosphere: The Value of a Link? II
In an earlier post on this topic, I looked at 91 sites on my blogroll that had open Sitemeter statistics. I found that an an inbound link is correlated with 11 additional visits per day. One might believe that links cause visits, or, as Professor Volokh noted in an email quoted in the linked post, that visits cause links or that some third factor causes both links and visits. (New Poll Shows Correlation Is Causation.) Data are not currently available to test which of these hypotheses are correct, though I'm hoping they will be soon.
Thanks to the amazing N.Z. Bear, I now have both traffic statistics and the number of inbound links for 682 weblogs (excluding identifiable duplicates). Of those 682 sites, I've been able to identify approximate first-post dates for 651. Some of these are likely to be inaccurate for blogs that have moved and neither imported their earlier posts nor linked to their earlier incarnation(s). (Dean Esmay's Blogspot Jihad was a boon to readers, but made this research somewhat more difficult.) I've also identified which of the 682 sites are hosted on the much-lamented BlogSpot servers.
In a comment on the post linked above, CGHill of Dustbury fame hypothesized an inertial effect, i.e., that visits are correlated with blog-age. As a first result, I looked at the correlation between blogs' age and traffic. On average, each month a site has been in existence is correlated with a (statistically significant) additional 26 daily average visits. So there's some preliminary support for this theory.
Next, I looked again at the correlation between inbound links and traffic. I find that each inbound link is correlated with a very statistically significant additional 12 visits per day. (This is similar to the 11 visits per day I found in the earlier analysis. The increase may be explained by the increased popularity of weblogs over the last couple of months.) If it can be shown that links cause visits, the number of inbound links alone explains 60% of the variation among blogs in the number of visits.
Adding blog-age to the analysis, I find that each inbound link is is again correlated with 12 additional visits per day and each month in existence is correlated with a statistically significant 15 fewer visits per day. Negative inertia?
Finally, I looked at the relationship between daily traffic, inbound links and whether or not a site was hosted on BlogSpot. Again, each inbound link was correlated with 12 additional daily visits. Sites on BlogSpot received a statistically significant 171 fewer visits per day than those hosted elsewhere. However, it's fairly common for sites to mature and be moved off BlogSpot (the "training wheels" phenomenon). Adding blog-age to the analysis, I find that, once again, inbound links are correlated with 12 additional visits per day, each month in existence is correlated with 14 fewer visits per day, and sites on BlogSpot receive a statistically insignificant 60 fewer visits per day.
The sites with the highest traffic given their age and number of inbound links ("readers' bloggers") are Gizmodo, Instapundit, Tom Tomorrow, Eschaton (Atrios) and Daily Kos. On the other hand, the "bloggers' bloggers'" are The Truth Laid Bear, A Small Victory, IMAO (I expect this might speed-up the delinking process.), VodkaPundit and Outside the Beltway.
In this post, OTB's James Joyner express surprise that his traffic appeared uncorrelated with the number of inbound links to his site. If links cause visits, my overdue explanation is that, at present, he's a "bloggers' blogger."
For what it's worth, my site is also very much of a bloggers' blog, receiving a rather-astounding 600 fewer daily visits than would be predicted. Thanks for all of the links, folks. Hopefully, the readership will follow...
I was going to post a few mildly interesting (to me, at least) charts of some of the underlying data, but this post is already too long. Perhaps I'll put them up in the days to come.
Your feedback is eagerly sought.
July 13, 2003
Quantifying the Whatisphere?
The graphs are drawn, the numbers are crunched. I'm just waiting for the letters to sort themselves out.
I was distracted by a mote. And I got older.
July 12, 2003
Weekend Reading
I'm still working on the Quantifying the Blogosphere post discussed below, and may have something up later tonight or tomorrow. Messy data.
In the meantime, the Weekly Standard has a two very thoughtful and mildly optimistic feature articles on the Iraq aftermath up: Why Iraq's Still a Hard Place by Tom Donnelly and The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship? by Reuel Marc Gerecht. I recommend them both highly.
In addition, Stephen F. Hayes posts a follow-up on the Saddam-al Qaeda connection and an interesting piece on Iraqi spying in the U.S.
Good stuff, all of it. (Oscar Jr., the Weekly Standard's table of contents site, with no pop-up ad!)
July 10, 2003
How to Not Get Published II
Armavirumque posts three more examples. (Earlier examples are linked here.)
Once again, they're very amusing, but I suspect that the third submission is a known ruse. Excerpt:
In addition, he [Jacob Dee] is the author of the soon to be published biography Yezzi: Poet, Lover, Rebel, Spy. Jacob Dee aspires to be a well-known and respected poet, but an even better known and respected movie script writer, have many affairs with prominent and busty actresses, sail around the horn in a clipper, edit a bestselling translation of the Dead Sea scrolls, and start a terribly successful and sassy magazine for the new century, Jake. Jacob Dee currently lives in Arcadia, Vermont, with his wife and two young children, and coaches little league baseball.
You may want to read the poem that Mr. Dee submitted.
July 09, 2003
Quantifying the Blogosphere, Preview II
I'm still working on the updated Quantifying the Blogosphere analysis discussed below. In addition to N.Z. Bear's daily visit statistics, I've now gathered (NZB's) inbound link data and approximate first-post dates for 680 of the 712 blogs.
For these 680 sites, the mean blog-age is 11 months, and the median age is 9 months. 35% of the sites are younger than mine. Between June 1998 and June 2003, the month that saw the most new blogs was February 2003.
Here's the distribution of sites by blog-age:
For the entire sample, 52% of the blogs are on BlogSpot. However, for the top 100 most visited sites (with open SiteMeter statistics), only 23% use BlogSpot.
Please note that there are a substantial number of duplicates in these data. Once I'm done cleaning them up (to the extent that I can), I'll post the full analysis. I hope it will be interesting.
In Other News
It's not quite Judgment Day, but the fellow who writes the mysteriously-monikered site IMOO has been posting for one year as of today.
Happy blogiversary, Frank J! IMAO is the funniest site out there. And I would have said this even without the impending threat of ruin.
Judgment Day
On NRO, Pooya Dayanim writes on today's planned demonstrations in Iran and around the world. Let freedom ring! Excerpt:
Judgment Day is approaching for those who have shed the blood of tens of thousands of innocent Iranians. Judgment Day is approaching for those who have ordered the stoning of women. Judgment Day is approaching for those who ordered the bombing of the Jewish community center in Argentina. Judgment Day is approaching for those who ordered the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon and the Khobar Towers in Riyadh. Judgment Day is approaching for those who started the chant: "Death to America" and everything America stands for. Judgment Day is approaching for the Islamic Republic of Iran. It may not be tomorrow, but soon this evil regime will join the other evil regimes in the dustbin of history. Judgment Day will come.
James Lileks' post today is, of course, relevant.
Departures
As others have pointed out, Page and Media Minded have given up on this hobby. I am grateful to Page for linking to my humble site in its early days.
Thanks, Page.
I don't pretend to understand. My best wishes to you both.
July 08, 2003
Quantifying the Blogosphere, A Preview
Thanks to the very clever N.Z. Bear, I am working on an update to this Quantifying the Blogosphere post in which I looked at the correlation between the number of incoming links and daily blog visits.
In that post, I looked at 91 sites on my blogroll with publicly-available Sitemeter statistics. N.Z. Bear has now automated the gathering of such statistics, offering them for 712 sites (including some duplicates).
In response to a comment by CGHill, I am also incorporating blog-age into the analysis. For each of the blogs on NZB's list, I've attempted to identify the earliest post on the site. (These data are somewhat tainted by Dean Esmay's BlogSpot Jihad, as many of the sites he helped to move off BlogSpot neither imported earlier posts nor linked to the BlogSpot weblog.)
For what it's worth, for the first 426 sites on the Bear's list, the average blog is 12 months old, and the median weblog is 10 months old. 28% of them are younger than my site.
In case anyone is interested, I expect to post more details on the analysis in the next few days.
July 07, 2003
July 03, 2003
Administrative Note
I will be traveling for the better part of the next week (alas, business, not pleasure). Posting may be light-to-non-existent during that period.
I hope to return to a mailbox full of suggestions for the Blogs around the World and the Blogs around the U.S.A. projects. Or, I can be realistic.
Anyway, happy Fourth of July to everyone who appreciates the date.
Contrast
Newest (to me) Iraqi blogger Zainab:
Did you know that at the beginning of the invasion everybody said it’s a bless getting rid of Saddam Hussien but it turns to be an ever lasting curse,haw could they just go leaving the biggest oil reservoir in the region, they have planned to stay, accept it or not ,the staunting thing is what the people want naw (the return of Saddam the tyrant)!!!
We shouldn't be surprised that the last embittered thugs are engaging in occasional acts of terrorism against us - on the contrary, we should be relieved that we see so little continuing resistance. After toppling a totalitarian regime that ruled a population of 25 million for over a generation, it's amazing that we face only one or two attacks every few days. We could be suffering hundreds of incidents daily, if the population stood behind Saddam & Co.
and
Iraq's our baby, and we have the muscle and the moxie to bring it up right. The kid may turn out to be a juvenile delinquent, but it won't be because we didn't do our best.
What do you think?
In any event, have a look at the comments on Zainab's site and read the Peters column.
July 02, 2003
Blogs around the U.S.A. Update IV
Here's a medium-sized update to the Blogs around the U.S.A. project.
For the Centennial State, check out View from a Height.
For the state governed by Sonny Perdue we have the (in?)famous Gut Rumbles.
From the state, the motto of which translates to "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you" blogs Occam's Toothbrush.
The state song of these blogs is "I Love New York": A Small Victory and You Big Mouth, You!.
Based in the Old North State are these wife-and-husband sites, Betsy's Page and Newmark's Door.
Hmm, the state flower for these weblogs is mistletoe: Cam Edwards and WylieBlog.
If Matt Groening was interested in news of his home state, he'd read Jack Bog's Blog and
Just Some Poor Schmuck.
From the lucky 13th state, you can read JimSpot and Rhode Island Web Log.
From the birthplace of Andrew Jackson, have a look at the Backcountry Conservative.
The first weblog listed from the Badger State is The American Mind.
I hope any readers will pay these fine sites a visit. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. I still have several more to review and consider before the next update. As always, additional suggestions are sought via email and/or comment.
Blogosphere Daily News
N.Z. Bear has another great project in the works, The Blogosphere Daily News. He (or, more specifically, his program) tallies up and summarizes the most linked blog posts, other media pieces, and images in a very attractive format. It's currently a beta version, but it looks great already.
I hope he'll keep an archive of each day's edition. What a useful resource this looks to be. That Bear's a genius.
Iraq Aftermath
On NRO, Victor Davis Hanson writes on postwar Iraq and the gratitude owed to our men and women working to bring peace and freedom there. Excerpt:
Because of such men and women, and despite so many other forces beyond their control, Iraq will not be lost to gangs and criminals, much less to Baathists, pan-Arabists, and Islamicists, who are not so much fueled by ideology as the desire for power and its accompanying material benefits for a tiny few.We are reaching a great tipping point in Iraq, where the American soldier seeks to impose security and implant freedom faster than former Baathists try to erode it. The Iraqi Street we see so often on the sidelines is watching the struggle, unsure whether to re-hang their pictures of Saddam Hussein now ensconced beneath their sofas or to come forward and join the great experiment with freedom and consensual government.
On Armavirumque, Roger Kimball posts on the same subject, quoting Andrew Sullivan.
More Recommended Reading
In case anyone missed it, Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column yesterday is a great read. The first half is standard Nordlinger-gold, but the second half, consisting of excerpts of email in response to his prior column addressing the affirmative action decision by the Supreme Court, is very much worth reading. Here's a taste of it:
"Jay, when I found out Jews were not a minority, I had my first good night's sleep in two thousand years."
July 01, 2003
Photographs from Normandy
What's up with France? Sheesh!
More disturbing still is the anti-Americanism of many of the comments.
Update: The Dissident Frogman (the author of the post linked above) confesses failure in his treatment of the original post. I don't think he failed at all -- he provided some original, somewhat speculative, reporting. The fact that commenters accused him of saying things he did not is entirely the fault of his readers.
I urge everyone who visits my site to link to, and read, his. If your blogroll is too big and I am on it, simply replace the link. And thanks.
Miscellany
Thanks to Betsy's Page for linking to the Blogs around the U.S.A. project and to Pathetic Earthlings for linking to the Blogs around the World post.
I'm glad I don't have such an "addictive personality." Nope, not me, not at all...
I've received quite a few suggested additions to both projects, and I expect to post additional updates soon. Please note, however, that these projects are not intended to be general weblog directories. Such things already exist. My goal for these projects is to highlight sites that focus, at least occasionally, on news specific to their geographic area.
As always, additional suggestions are sought via comment or email. Thanks for visiting!
