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Archive for Number Crunching
Video Statistics, Comfort Nudists, Wild Heather, Clare Beale, and the Power of Recommendation
Yesterday (21st July) in the Independent Media Section, Claire Beale was very enthusiastic about a video advert designed by Ogilvy for Comfort the fabric conditioner, involving a Nudist who becomes infatuated with clothing.
In the Best in Show section of her Advertising Page, she included:
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The standard presentation of four screenshots in the printed Media Section of the paper.
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Instructions on how to find it, including details of the exact search to use on Youtube.
The article does not include a clickable link within the web page on the Independent website.
I’m taking an interest because the video has had a relatively small number of views, so it is an opportunity to examine the statistics in a bit more detail than we usually see.
The Comfort Advert with Nudists
Here’s the video. It is quite amusing, and worth a look - and only 90 seconds long. The plot is that a man finds his wife on sofa with another man, fully clothed and sniffing like dogs..
I’ve also added a copy to the Wardman Wire video feed on the front page of the blog.
Let’s now have a look at the number of people who have viewed the Comfort Nudist video.
Zimbabwe will be a country of Mathematical Geniuses
Robert Mugabe’s greatest achievement may well be to create a nation of heavily muscled Maths geniuses.
Nowhere else in the world does your average 6 or 8 year old sent out on an errand to buy a loaf of bread have to deal with numbers in the millions tens of millions without parental help, while carrying currency around by the bucketload.
This note is 10 million Zimbabwe dollars. As you can see from the date, it is now obsolete because the numbers are too small.
Use your Loaf. Remember.
Let’s go backwards through history to explain the Mathematical Genuises and look at the price of bread - remember that this staple is price-controlled by the government.
July 2008: Loaf of bread is one third of a teacher’s salary. 2,200,200% inflation.
From the Sidney Morning Herald:
ZIMBABWE’S official inflation rate has reached 2.2 million per cent, driving the cost of a loaf of bread to about a third of a teacher’s monthly salary.
Independent economists dismissed the Government’s figure, saying the true rate was several times higher and rising faster than ever.
On Wednesday the governor of the central bank, Gideon Gono, announced a near 13-fold increase since the last time he released an inflation rate, in February, when it was put at 165,000 per cent.
March 2008: Loaf of Bread is 10 million Zimbabwe dollars. 100,000% inflation.
In March 2008 this note would have bought you a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe. From the Christian Science Monitor:
Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation rate at 100,000 percent. A loaf of bread now costs 10 million Zimbabwe dollars.
Other food items were more expensive. In the first week of March 2008 a sack of potatoes (14kg) was $90,000,000. By the 25th that was $160,000,000.
Web Statistics Media Pantomime
I posted a short piece about the Guardian Media Top 100 yesterday mentioning Guido, and the obligatory link back to the “Newsnight experience”. [Update: no I didn’t; it stuck in the system. Sorry.]
During the skewering of Guido, Jeremy Paxman said:
Facts are treated very loosely in the blogosphere, aren’t they?
This cuts both ways, especially when numbers are involved - we all need to get the facts straight.
So let’s have the final visit to the Sunday Independent’s article a couple of weeks ago about web statistics to see an example of “facts treated very loosely in the media”.
Joy Lo Dico: 460,000+ Technorati Reactions prove Guardian Website Authority
Joy Lo Dico cites Technorati “Reactions” as proof of both the “engagement” and “authority” of the Guardian website:
In another way of cutting the statistics, Technorati, a blog indexer, notes that there have been over 460,000 blog reactions to Guardian articles, proving both engagement in its output and its authority. The Telegraph and the Mail Online do not reach half those figures, and the Sun only around 60,000.
It’s these kind of statistics that may fare better as advertisers start to look for readership quality as well as raw numbers. Next year the Joint Industry Committee for Internet Measurement Systems, made up of advertising and online publishers, will launch a system of data analysis more akin to the National Readership Survey than the ABCs. It will also focus entirely on the UK.
This is the type of skating over the surface and failing to dig for the facts of which Bloggers are often accused; I see it just as much in the papers.
Errr … Oh No They Don’t !
We can scratch the surface of the “460,000+ blog reactions to guardian.co.uk” by looking at a random sample - say the last 50 “reactions” on Technorati. If we do that it takes about 15 seconds to the surface and find out why the raw figure is useless as a measure of authority - at least without a lot more analysis.
The crucial point is to find out who it is doing the reacting.
Here’s the first screenshot - of the Guardian.co.uk technorati home page, you can see 486,664 “blog reactions” if you click through to the full screenshot. You can look at past reactions by clicking on “view all” and then going backwards using the arrows.
Here are the last 5 screenshots, taken yesterday (10am 16 July 2008):
Check these screenshots above, and you will see that:
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5 of these 50 “blog reactions” are from blogs hosted on guardian.co.uk itself.
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For good measure another is from my own www.politics-daily.co.uk site.
A quick scan indicates a number of others that *look* like scrapers or aggregators of various kinds.
I did the same thing two weeks ago, and that sample yielded 9 “blog reactions” from guardian.co.uk.
Bloggers versus Print Media Websites: Comparative UK Market Shares
Robin Goad of Hitwise published some figures for the market share of blogs and newspaper websites that have not been remarked upon.
I think that a comparison between blogs and the websites of Print media is of interest, as both are basically written forms of communication - albeit with an increasing use of multimedia.
The growth of blogs over 3 years is startling, and together this data shows the increasing use of the internet as a news source more recently.
Blogs: Almost quadrupled share in 3 years
This first graph shows the increasing market share of “blogs and personal websites”, which has increased from roughly 0.33% to 1.19% over the last three years.
Should be fun.
News and Media - Print: 1.0% to 1.95% in 3 years
This second graph shows the share of print up until early 2008.
When I mentioned this comparison to Robin, he kindly checked the latest figures, which came out as follows:
Week ending 14th June 2008:
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Blogs and Personal Website market share: 1.20%.
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News and Media - Print Websites: 1.95%.
Watch out Daily Mail, here comes the Independent !
[Update 1/7/08 3:30pm: re-edited for flow and length]
At the weekend the Independent on Sunday (known as Sindie) published a long article examining the Audit Bureau of Circulation (Electronic) - ABCe - readership figures for national newspape
r websites. Joy Lo Dico argued that newspaper websites get a good proportion of their traffic by running material considerably downmarket from that run in the papers.
In my opinion there are a few problems in Joy’s analysis:
1 - Joy points the finger for running “linkbait” at a number of other national newspaper websites at quite some length - notably the Mail and the Telegraph.
The same issue of the Independent on Sunday contained (for example) a double page spread on how “hair length reflects economic conditions”, and the website has a photo of three Supermodels as the most prominent picture, I think there’s more than a little “pot calling the kettle black” going on here.
2 - The numerical analysis draws conclusions on very small differences (of well under 1%) without taking account of the assumptions of the ABCe audit process. The article itself contains evidence of this weakness, and documents a sudden jump of 5 million (a small matter of 30% or so) in the Telegraph “Online Readership” in a month by simply changing their “supplier of counting services”.
This is going to need more than one post for a comprehensive response, so I thought I’d start with a (slightly lighthearted) look at Celebrity Stories in the Independent on Sunday edition (29 June) containing this article.
The Papers would Blush
The article said:
The paper would blush but anything goes on their sites
One can’t imagine Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, a man of sound family values, putting it on the cover of his newspaper, but the recently relaunched Mail Online isn’t so shy. With Martin Clarke, a hardball Associated Newspapers veteran at the tiller, the website isn’t scared of putting celebrity above the fold, digitally speaking. Along with the Ronaldo snaps on Thursday, readers were just a click away from stories on David Beckham taking his children for a spin in a Rolls-Royce, Princess Beatrice having shoe trouble and Amy Winehouse on the booze, all with pictures attached. You had to scroll down a pretty long way to find columnist Melanie Phillips.
This distinct move has done wonders for the Mail’s online circulation. In the May ABCs – the Audit Bureau of Circulations measurement of traffic to the newspaper websites – it leapfrogged the Telegraph and Guardian to take the top spot with 18.7 million unique users, an impressive achievement for a website that only really geared up in 2006.
I wonder whether the same is true for Sindie on Sunday?
There is a blow-by-blow account of celebrities in the Independent on Sunday at the end of this article. The answer is - yes - it is full of celebrities.
Sindie’s Website
Moving on to the seriously highbrow Independent website, we have as the largest photograph - this (Monday) morning anyway - a completely celebrity free photograph of three Supermodels that no one has ever heard of with the heading “Mandela’s Birthday Dinner“. I’m sure he will find out who these anonymous women are, and explain their news value. Click through on the image for the full screenshot.
There are a lot more non-celebrity articles on the home page of the Sindie.
Up and at ‘em in Google
A few weeks ago Robin Goad over at Hitwise wrote an analysis of how the Independent is getting more hits from search engines:
“The real change has been the amount of traffic that the paper receives from search engines. An increase in paid search activity has played a role – the proportion of paid search traffic has increased from 1% in November last year to 11% last month – but the key to the Independent’s success seems to be more effective organic search engine optimisation (SEO). Searches for the term ‘independent’ are actually on the decline, and the proportion of traffic that the site sites receives from its main brand term has fallen by 84% since November. But, at the same time, the number of distinct search terms sending traffic to the Independent has increased from under 1,000 in November to over 10,000 in March.”
I wonder how they managed that?
The Problems
Traffic Measurement and Judgement
I’ll be returning to the numbers side of this story next time. This sort of thing is nonsense:
The Mail’s new digital confidence has shaken up the ABCs. The Telegraph, which had taken top spot in the previous month, came in second with 18.4 million, while the Guardian, the long-standing leader, slunk in at third with 18.3 million.
Anybody who thinks that any web traffic measuring process (even the “gold standard” ABCe version) can meaningfully distinguish differences between competing websites of well under 1% has not done their homework. My opinion is that any differences between websites, even using identical processes, are not worth talking about unless they are over - perhaps - 10%.
Main Stream Media and Search Engine Optimisation
Sindie in the Search Engines
I think the Main Stream Media are becoming very “tricksy”, as Gollum would put it, in their use of search engines. This is altogether more serious than using photos of Maria Sharapova pouting to draw traffic via Google Images. Here is a screenshot of the metadata fields for the Independent on Sunday article we started with.
The article quoted at the top, which ends up being almost completely about the number of Unique Visitors to different newspaper websites, somehow has a “summary” served to Google which reads thus:
It was a picture that would make many blush: Cristiano Ronaldo, in swimming shorts, nestling between the legs of his bikini-clad girlfriend on a beach in Sardinia, a fig leaf for her dignity. The Daily Mail ran it on page 23, in among other less racy shots. On the Mail Online website, it was unavoidable at the top of the homepage.
In the long term this type of “summary spam” will damage the traffic quality of newspapers playing the game - and deservedly so. In the meantime it puts them at risk of someone putting a SPAM report into Google under “Page does not match Google’s description” or “Misleading or repeated words“.
Daily Mail beyond the Pale
I’ll cut the Independent a bit of slack here (not a lot, mind); at least the Indy hasn’t - as far as I can tell - started indulging in virtual keyword spam. The Daily Mail are using filenames such as:
“Cristiano-Ronaldo-gets-hot-heavy-model-girlfriend-Italy.html“
with an article headlined:
Extra, extra! Read all about me! Ronaldo shows pals his holiday snaps (in the Daily Mail)
It’s not black-hat by any means, but certainly a little mucky. There’s a good seam of MSM-sceptic articles here waiting for a blogger or journalist willing to do some digging (Tim, Justin, Mr Isle?). Might it be a story?
Wrapping Up
If I was an advertiser, I’d be asking some very hard questions of the Mail - since that type of article name implies that a proportion of the Daily Mail’s traffic is 13 year old boys with well-develop forearms (one forearm, anyway); it is not the kind of high quality traffic I would be looking for in return for my advertising fee.
The difference between edgy activity with the Press Complaints Commission, and the Internet equivalent, is that Big Brother Google can defenestrate a website with no need to have you “bang to rights”. It goes like this:
- Google owns the index.
- Google controls the index.
- Google decides who is in the index.
- “You are the Weakest Link, Goodbye“.
List of Members of the 2008 Greater London Assembly and their Votes
These are the people who have been elected to the Greater London Assembly, with the areas they represent and their votes and percentages of the poll.
Constituency members
- Barnet and Camden - Brian Coleman Conservative 70,659 (46.33%)
- Bexley and Bromley - James Cleverly Conservative 105,162 (49.13%)
- Brent and Harrow - Navin Shah Labour 57,760 (42.17%)
- City and East - Containing boroughs, Barking & Dagenham,Newham, Tower Hamlets, City of London - John Biggs Labour 63,635 (39.79%)
- Croydon and Sutton - Steve O’Connel Conservative 76,477 (45.16%)
- Ealing and Hillingdon - Richard Barnes Conservative 74,710 (41.53%)
- Enfield and Haringey - Joanne McCartney Labour 52,665 (42.9%)
- Greenwich and Lewisham - Len Duvall Labour 53,174 (42.29%)
- Havering and Redbridge - Roger Evans Conservative 78,493 (44.58%)
- Lambeth and Southwark - Val Shawcross Labour 60,601 (41.27%)
- Merton and Wandsworth - Richard Tracey Conservative 75,103 (46.18%)
- North East Containing boroughs: Waltham Forest, Hackney, Islington - Jeanette Arnold Labour 73,551 (37.95%)
- South West Containing boroughs Hounslow, Richmond upon Thames, Kingston upon Thames - Tony Arbour Conservative 76,913 (45,39%)
- West Central Containing boroughs: Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham - Kit Malthouse Conservative 86.651 (43.15%)
London Wide Members
- Andrew Boff - Conservative
- Victoria Borwick - Conservative
- Gareth Bacon - Conservative
- Nicky Gavron - Labour
- Murad Qureshi - Labour
- Mike Tuffrey - Liberal Democrat
- Dee Doocey - Liberal Democrat
- Caroline Pidgeon - Liberal Democrat
- Jenny Jones - Green Party
- Darren Johnson - Green Party
- Richard Barnbrook - British National Party
Wrapping-Up
The Guardian produced a good diagram of the Greater London Assembly results (PDF 120k).
Advertise on the Wardman Wire: May Special Offer
I’m starting running private adverts on the new front page of the Wardman Wire, and across the site. There is a special deal for advertisers during May.
During my blogging break in May, I’ll devote some time to “IT plumbing”, and I’ll take the time to do a full Media Kit then.
In the meantime, this is a special introductory offer for May:
A 125×125 button on all pages of the site - including the front page - from now until the end of May, for £30. The buttons will be positioned above the fold. Mild animation is fine. I will design a button for you for an extra £10 (see most of the ones already on here for examples).
Why advertise now?
Our Audience
Our audience is broad for a political blog, and includes elements of politics, media and technology sectors; so we can give you exposure beyond the narrow political “silo” - as well as within it.
Our Traffic
Our traffic has substantially increased. The site traffic has grown since February, from 7,000 - 9,000 unique visitors weekly to around 10,000 -> 11,000 now, because:
- We have started 4 completely new columns on the blog.
- In the last month we have launched a brand new “topic-based” front end to the blog.
- The UK Edition of the Wardman Wire into a full mirror site, which means that these adverts get displayed to UK-based traffic that previously came there.
Good Value
- Even if you take a figure of 100,000 Page Impressions, and compare it with typical costs for blog button adverts per thousand displays, the price quoted above is inexpensive - around 70% cheaper than the “typical” figures quoted. If you move now, you get an extra week free over a normal monthly rate.
- During the month, I will do a “commercial break” post (usually on a Friday) describing your product or service.
RAW Data for February
According to my log files and ad-impression counter, the RAW February traffic figures are roughly these:
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Unique Visitors: 29,000.
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RAW Page Impressions: 215,000+. You can reduce that significantly to discount search engine crawlers and other “noise”. It comes out at about 100-120,000 page impressions by my estimate. I previous blogged about how much to discount traffic statistics back in February.
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Raw Visits: 74894 - using a 30 minute return figure (the same as used by the Audit Bureau of Circulations - see section 1.6.).
Real Data for February
I usually apply discounts to allow for Web Crawler robots and other “noise”, to come up with the following figures:
- Raw unique visitors: reduce 29,000 by 10% to give 26100.
- Raw page impressions: reduce the raw figure of 217,385 by 40% to 130,000 or so, then by another 10% to 117,000 to be safe.
- Visits: reduce the raw figure of 74894 by 35% to 48,500 or so.
These are based on experience as well as analysis. As you can see, I think that being slightly cynical about web statistics is the best approach.
Wrapping-Up
If you would like to advertise, please get in touch with me at mattwardman AT gmail DOT com.
“Lack of Stats” -pr0n for the Last Week
There’s been a rash of stats-porn, and anti-stats April fool porn, this week on UK Political Blogs. Stats are interesting (because traffic is one of the first two items people ask about when trying to assess a blog), but the comments about blogs vs big media are a far more interesting current issue - especially with “Politics Portals” (my term) with their origins in the blogosphere on the way.
Since this is Free for all Friday again I thought I would make my contrarian contribution.
Wardman Wire Stats summary: Tankety Tank
The Wardman Wire stats have gone the other way as a result of our friendly hacker earlier this week. To illustrate, here are a selection of tweets from earlier this week from me:
Average Goog visits each day last month: about 200. Yesterday: 6. Today so far: 0. What Cialis hacks do for you.
Currently rebuilding blog on different account, and transferring 6000 or so files.
Wonder how long it will take to get Goog friendly again. Guessing 4-8 weeks.
Interesting RSS clickthroughs have tanked too by half. 70 today. Would usually be 200-300 over day.Wonder if came from finding feed via Goog
Never mind. Content is king … eventually. I hope.
Overall, reckon traffic is down by a third to 40%. Grr.
(Aside:my Twitter feed, full of fun, wisdom, and foolishness, is here).
The impact seems to be that traffic has tanked by about 40% - that is down from roughly 1500-1700 uniques a day to something just under 1000.
Does it matter? Yes and No. I’m not hugely bothered about the absolute numbers (which have roughly gone back to where they were in December), but I am concerned that the segment of traffic that has vanished is the “general public” segment - who come largely via Google. Some of those are people who “bounce in and out”; others are “non-politicos” who are interested in particular questions.
One of the aims I have for the blog is to see if it is possible to break through (or over, or under, or round) the walls of the “political blogging ghetto”. That project has been put back some way.
Do I See - A Visitor from Google?
This afternoon I spotted my first Google visitor for a few days. Just one. It could be a straw in the wind, or a fish that escaped the Google net.
I’ve managed to lock down the implanted hacker for the last 24-48 hours (I’ll tell you how if you email me - not posting it), and they could be coming back.
Time will tell.
Wrapping-Up
In the meantime, the blog is still moving. Didn’t make it last night, but I am nearly there.
Just in case you need help getting to sleep after drinking 257 cups of coffee, read this comments thread.
The thing that I find even more interesting is that the Devil is using the rephrasing “pr0n ” in his title - as if it will mitigate for the 699 appearances of “c*nt” in his archives. He may have a good reason.
For the record: Dale: 10 c*nts. Fawkes: er.. 1840 c*nts. Wardman: 0 c*nts (and 3 tw*ts - 2 duplicates in reaction to Mr Gordon’s 2007 budget, and one quoting somebody else about Egyptian politics). Hamish the Greek: 157 c*nts. Bloggerheads shades Iain on this metric: 17 c*nts.
The Devil will be mortified at being on 699 not 700, and will probably call me one to make up the numbers. Iain Dale’s are probably all in the comments. Guido’s are probably mainly in the comments too. And that is probably more than enough. I want my tea.
Tags: announcement, google, hacker[tags]announcement, google, hacker[/tags]
