Weekend numbers
It’s not quite the Slashdot effect, but Sunday’s article in the NY Times did result in a spike in readership, as the chart shows:
Average traffic for a Sunday is about 2,800 sessions; yesterday, the total was 5,500. (A “session” is a way of measuring individual visitors to a site, while “hits” simply refers to the number of times a page is loaded. Sessions are generally considered a more accurate reflection of readership.)
Note that Saturday numbers were up as well; the “Sunday” issue of the NY Times is actually available on Saturday.
While some of these new readers no doubt typed “johnaugust.com” into their browser, quite a few simply clicked the link in the online version of the story. A check of the referral log shows that 1,139 arrivals came directly from the NY Times website.
So what does this mean? Well, nothing really. The site didn’t crash, and long-term readership will probably stay exactly where it always was. But it’s always nice to have visitors.
Articles
May 23rd, 2005 at 12:16 pm
You are so funny, and I look forward to your new comments every day…thanks for being so generous with your pesronal and professional life…very inspiring
May 23rd, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Hey John, I’m one of the new guys. I can’t believe I didn’t know about your site. The information you give out for free is priceless. Lately, I been checking out blogs dealing with different aspects of moviemaking and I’ve been really turned off by how many are just people bashing each other. I just don’t understand the reasoning behind this. Everything I’ve read here seems to just be people helping each other out. I’ll be sticking around for the long run.
May 23rd, 2005 at 3:23 pm
John, it’s great to see your site finally receive some attention for the all the good work you’ve been doing. I’ve been a faithful reader to the site for over a year now, and I hope that you continue the good work.
May 23rd, 2005 at 4:49 pm
WordPress can usually handle flat-out Slashdotting. NYTimesing is a piece of cake by comparison. I’m the only person to have been textismed, zeldmanised, and slashdotted within the same week, so I know whereof I speak. (Though I wasn’t running WP at the time.)
May 23rd, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Good to know, Joe. I really didn’t know how much traffic was going to come, and was bracing for the worst.
May 24th, 2005 at 1:19 am
The web is amazing. I was looking for a movie review in the NY Times — I think “Crash”, which I saw last Saturday here in LA (BTW, read reviews only after seeing a film, NEVER before!) — and stumbled across the resplendent picture of you lounging on a bench. What a terrific site you have, since Sunday I’ve been drinking it up like the nectar of the Gods. Props to you and all those who read and write in, you’re now officially included in my daily writing routine. Holla.
May 28th, 2005 at 8:53 pm
As an ardent believer in that glorious Jungian construct known as synchronicity, it makes perfect sense that I just now got around to reading last Sunday’s NYTimes feature on you, John. You see, it was only two days ago that I stood with a boxed copy of FinalDraft in my hands, pondering its relative merits and half-joking with my friend that I’d been eager to buy it and start work on my first screenplay. Earlier in the week, I’d passed Daniel Wallace at the local WholeFoods market here in Chapel Hill, and unlike most of the other over-caffienated health nuts (an oxymoron?), not only recognized him–I see him fairly often around town–but actually thought as usual, “Wow, a real writer.” Then too, I’m an IT director by day who appreciates the beauty of parseable XML, blogging, and OS X. Add to this the fact that my 2-year-old son regularly looks at the David Hockney print titled “Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio” that adorns his bathroom wall, saying “I wanna go to Hollywood,” and well…it all makes perfect sense! What a joy and inspiration to discover your site. It sure beats the hell out of dusting off my old copy of the Celestine Prophecy. Now if I can just convince the Mrs. to relocate and talk my pals Natalie and Don into taking in a small family of boarders in their tiny Laurel Canyon bungalow…
June 2nd, 2005 at 7:29 am
Then you might get a secondary wave of visitors like me a few days after the article from word of mouth
June 10th, 2005 at 6:40 am
What’s the name of your stat tool ?
June 10th, 2005 at 8:08 am
The statistics tool is Urchin, which comes with this webhost. For me, it’s just the right amount of info.
June 20th, 2005 at 11:49 am
I came across this new Firefox plug-in, Outfoxed, that might be useful in filtering through the plethora of writer blogs out there. It’s built on the social networking concept. Sorry, not much of a compu-geek or I’d give more info. http://www.getoutfoxed.com