In general, I don't take much of an interest in web site
statistics, or at least in my own. Whatever it is on the web that people
are reading, I can rather confidently write that it's not something by me.
I figure I've done my job by posting something, and if readers don't want to
read what I've written, well, I'm not overly surprised, and for that reason,
not overly distressed.
Do I really mean that? Can someone who goes to the trouble of posting ten years
of writing to a web site (and quite a few years to other sites as well) honestly
say that the question of the size of his readership truly doesn't concern him?
Maybe what I really mean to say here is that I simply prefer not to know. It
might also be a well calculated attempt to further hone my online persona as
someone who doesn't seek any retribution for what he contributes to the vast
reaches of cyberspace (a persona which is almost tangibly distinct from that
I present in face-to-face situations).
My personal sites, and my desire, or lack of it, to know
whether anyone is aware of the fact that I'm howling at the moon, however, operate
on a different plane than the sites that I'm responsible for in my various work
capacities. Though with my personal sites I can allow myself to say "I
enjoy doing this so I'll simply keep at it", my work related sites don't
work that way. They have to justify their investment in time and money. What's
more, on the whole they don't only want to put the word "out there"
but to verify that someone is hearing it, if for no other reason than if they
learn that people aren't listening, then they can change their tune and perhaps
better get their message out. Never having been someone who knows how to successfully
distinguish between work and pleasure, public and private, and the like, I've allowed my personal preferences free reign in my professional arena as well, blatantly disregarding the statistical reports that tell me about the
readership of those non-personal sites.
It was in this capacity (and when
explicitly requested to do so) that I had the opportunity to view the statistics
for a couple of the sites for which I have a professional connection. Though
I tried to tell myself that I really wasn't interested, it was a fascinating
experience. The amount of data was overwhelming, the variety of the items to
be checked was close to endless, and their possible interpretations were ...
well, it could have made for a very interesting (though certainly different) profession.
And the truth is that this really is a profession, and though
I don't have any hard data on this, most probably one that pays very well. We
might call it the flip side of search engine optimization (and for all I know,
considering that much of what I've read about the topic comes from sites that
also deal with optimizing, performed by the same people). On the one hand we
have people who are busy getting their sites to the top of a search engine's
results, or getting their advertisements to the top of the list of ads that
appear when we search for a particular term. That's the hand that's either pulling
or pushing us to view a particular site. But once we're there, the other hand
has to see to it that it holds on to us, keeps us on the site for an extended period of time. After all, sites don't want readers only because they're absorbing the information to be found on them. They also, and perhaps primarily, want to make a sale, or to convince advertisers considering advertising on that site
that somebody is really visiting.
Numerous sites exist that offer us an extensive analysis
of a web site, going well beyond a breakdown of the number of visits to the
site on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Obviously, the more extensive of these
cost a good deal of money, though from my experience with a free site, I find
it hard to imagine what's left to pay for. The detailed analysis that these
free services offer suggest either that there's truly no reason to put out money
for this information, or that the possibilities for a more in depth analysis
are almost endless. I guess that what happens
is that, considering that a record can be kept about just about everything,
all we really have to do is ask. Do we want to know which pages of our site
were visited most on particular days of the week with users from a particular
country? No problem. Maybe we want the order of pages viewed on our site, cross-indexed
with the referring pages and the different browsers in use? Perhaps a bit more
of a problem, but still probably doable. With the amount it's possible to get
free, is there any reason to think that someone would pay to get more? Obviously,
and even logically, the answer is yes. We are, after all, dealing with a business.
Databases seem to abhor a vacuum. If it's possible to
mine data, then it's almost a crime not to. And this means that the information
being gathered, not only the statistics of the use of a site, but just about
every click that ever takes place, is being recorded.
This could be a substantial source for paranoia, but it seems to me that that's
taking things a bit too far. Yes, this information can be processed rather quickly,
but I doubt that there's much reason to do so. Since a simple cookie tells The
New York Times who I am each time I access an article on that site, the databases
of the Times should have no problem taking things one step further, identifying
me as one of those people who seems constantly to be trying to find back doors
to accessing articles I don't subscribe to. On the other hand, perhaps if they
review the statistical analysis of the use of their site, they may discover
that more than a handful of non-paying users want access to a certain type of
article, and thus decide to make those items (the ones I want, of course) public.
The handwriting seems to be on the wall. Today, Rheingold's virtual
community is populated less and less with those who seek contact, and more
and more with predators who never honestly considered behaving like good neighbors.
Those of us who view cyberspace via the glasses of a decade ago not only find
ourselves to be anachronisms in this new reality, but can't help getting the
feeling that we've lost an important battle. That's true on numerous fronts,
so it's not surprising that the gathering and analyzing of web-use statistics
is only one more of these. Perhaps it's this sense of loss, of defeat, that
causes me to feel almost as though I'm visiting enemy territory, or at least
setting foot on unfriendly turf, when I plunge into a statistical analysis of
a web site and its use. But even as I acknowledge that this is no longer the
same internet that I first met over a decade ago, I also have to admit that
it's me who has been standing still while those vast changes have been taking
place. The problem is that I seem to like it the old way and don't feel much
of an urge to adapt. No need to bring me statistical proof that nobody is reading
this. I already know that.
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