Blog Traffic Patterns

Capitalism 2.0 community traffic patterns for the year.

From the time I launched (late 2005) until December 2006 nearly all traffic was generated by fellow bloggers and readers from Patrick.net's "Reality Parser" blog on the San Francisco Bay Area real estate bubble.  As you can see, this blog never became known as a "bubble blog", or it would have had 10x the traffic.  I intentionally avoided turning this forum into YABB (yet another bubble blog).  Little did I know I would stumble into another bubble anyway.

In January of 2007, I wrote the first and most popular of my articles on the virtual computer game world known as Second Life.  My first and second sharply critical articles on the economy of Second Life and related media hype were picked up by ValleyWag, and shortly thereafter Slashdot.  As you can see, February marked a peak in volume, however the articles proved to have a very long tail.  Even today nearly half of Capitalism 2.0's traffic results from the many permanent Wiki references to those articles, and from search engine queries on the topic.  These articles still appear on page one search results, though they have fallen from top of the list, where they were most of February. and March.

I took most of the Spring and Summer off, and the blog sat idle.

The last couple of months I have expanded Capitalism 2.0 by reengaging some early authors like Astrid and Pamela, and by recruiting new ones.  During the past couple of months more traffic has resulted from newer articles.  Hopefully by early next year Capitalism 2.0 will be a vibrant blog community in its own right with multiple authors and a range of intelligent, mature discussion and debate -- as always with a solid grounding in economics and finance.

Comments

[Brand]

So Randy, what's the long term plan for cementing this vibrant community? I think there are some interesting things to discuss at the intersection of economics and lifestyle. astrid started us off in the right direction with her articles on Iceland.

To be honest, I've been really burned out on the whole housing blog scene. The emerging bust is now somewhat obvious to the mainstream world, and I don't see any new insights coming from the YABB community. Not that the schadenfreude party is unjustified, but it's gotten a bit stale. I'm more curious about my own pursuits than about the mounting losses of reckless banks and greedy loanowners.

Which makes me feel like writing an article, actually. Perhaps you might be convinced to grant me author permissions on Capitalism 2.0?

[randolfe_]

Brand

Sorry I've been away from the blog for a couple of days. I agree with you concerning the world of bubble blogs. Very stale.

I'd be very happy to grant you authoring rights. Expect them soon.

[randolfe_]

I'll need you to email me your address though. I just realized it's not in your comment account here.

Also let me know what name you'd like displayed in the author-section here. You can go by your anon handle, obviously, like Astrid has. Others in the past have gone under their real names. Your choice.

[Brand]

I fired off an e-mail last night with the necessary information. I'll be sticking with "Brand" as my pen name. Thanks!

[Brand]

Ok, let's see if the TypeKey login works. Brand was taken as a login, but it should display Brand as my screen name.