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I have a genuine question that I fear might be interpreted as a dismissive opinion but I'm actually interested in the answer: what's the goal of collecting anal

by p4bl0 3y ago

I have a genuine question that I fear might be interpreted as a dismissive opinion but I'm actually interested in the answer: what's the goal of collecting analytics data in the case of personal blogs in a non-commercial context such as what Bearblog seems to be?

Veen 3y ago
Curiosity? I like to know if anyone is reading what I write. It's also useful to know what people are interested in. Even personal bloggers may want to tailor content to their audience. It's good to know that 500 people have read an article about one topic, but only 3 people read one about a different topic.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  For the curiosity, one solution I've been pondering, but never gotten around to implementing is just logging the country of origin for a request, rather than the entire IP. IPs are useful in case of attack, but you could limit yourself to simply logging subnets. It's a little more aggressive block a subnet, or an entire ISP, but it seems like a good tradeoff.
taurusnoises 3y ago
I can speak to this from the writer's perspective as someone who has been actively blogging since c. 2000 and has been consistently (very) interested in my "stats" the entire time. The primary reason I care about analytics is to see if posts are getting read, which on the surface (and in some ways) is for reasons of vanity, but is actually about writer-reader engagement. I'm genuinely interested in what my readers resonate with, because I want to give them more of that. The "that" could be topical, tonal, length, who knows. It helps me hone my material specifically for my readers. Ultimately, I could write about a dozen different things in two dozen different ways. Obviously, I do what I like, but I refine it to resonate with my audience. In this sense, analytics are kind of a way for me to get to know my audience. With blogs that had high engagement, analytics gave me a sort of fuzzy character description of who my readers were. As with above, I got to see what they liked, but also when they liked it. Were they reading first thing in the morning? Were they lunch time readers? Were they late at night readers. This helped me choose (or feel better about) posting at certain times. Of course, all of this was fuzzy intel, but I found it really helped me engage with my readership more actively.
hennell 3y ago
Feedback loops. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, analytics is not just about advertising or selling data, it's about analysing site and content performance. Sure that can be used (and abused) for advertising, but it's also essential if you want any feedback about what you're doing. You might get no monetary value from having 12 people read the site or 12,000 but from a personal perspective it's nice to know what people want to read about from you, and so you can feel like the time you spent writing it was well spent, and adjust if you wish to things that are more popular.

by p4bl0 3y ago

Veen 3y ago

Curiosity? I like to know if anyone is reading what I write. It's also useful to know what people are interested in. Even personal bloggers may want to tailor content to their audience. It's good to know that 500 people have read an article about one topic, but only 3 people read one about a different topic.

mrweasel 3y ago
For the curiosity, one solution I've been pondering, but never gotten around to implementing is just logging the country of origin for a request, rather than the entire IP. IPs are useful in case of attack, but you could limit yourself to simply logging subnets. It's a little more aggressive block a subnet, or an entire ISP, but it seems like a good tradeoff.

taurusnoises 3y ago

I can speak to this from the writer's perspective as someone who has been actively blogging since c. 2000 and has been consistently (very) interested in my "stats" the entire time. The primary reason I care about analytics is to see if posts are getting read, which on the surface (and in some ways) is for reasons of vanity, but is actually about writer-reader engagement. I'm genuinely interested in what my readers resonate with, because I want to give them more of that. The "that" could be topical, tonal, length, who knows. It helps me hone my material specifically for my readers. Ultimately, I could write about a dozen different things in two dozen different ways. Obviously, I do what I like, but I refine it to resonate with my audience. In this sense, analytics are kind of a way for me to get to know my audience. With blogs that had high engagement, analytics gave me a sort of fuzzy character description of who my readers were. As with above, I got to see what they liked, but also when they liked it. Were they reading first thing in the morning? Were they lunch time readers? Were they late at night readers. This helped me choose (or feel better about) posting at certain times. Of course, all of this was fuzzy intel, but I found it really helped me engage with my readership more actively.

hennell 3y ago

Feedback loops. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, analytics is not just about advertising or selling data, it's about analysing site and content performance. Sure that can be used (and abused) for advertising, but it's also essential if you want any feedback about what you're doing. You might get no monetary value from having 12 people read the site or 12,000 but from a personal perspective it's nice to know what people want to read about from you, and so you can feel like the time you spent writing it was well spent, and adjust if you wish to things that are more popular.