Stats, stats and stats - October 2009

You can find August's stats here, and September's here, by the way. If I get more motivated, I might eventually make some graphs and charts with these numbers. Anyway, on to this month's numbers:

Total number of visits – 483 (down by 60)
Total number of pageviews – 730 937 (down by 207)
Average time on site – 1:32 (down 24 seconds)
Percentage of new visitors – 50.31% (up about 7.52%)
Most popular days – Thursday, Oct. 22 (35 visits) and Wednesday, Oct. 21 (28)
Least popular days – Wednesday, Oct. 7 (4 visits)
Top Five referrers – Direct Link (20.91%), Blogger (16.56%), Twitter (12.01%), Google Images (10.77%) and Google (10.56%)
Top Five states – Rhode Island (111 visits), Massachusetts (82), Virginia (35), California (28) and Minnesota (21)
Unpopular states – Nobody visited from Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Delaware, South Carolina and Maine.
Top Five cities – Ft. Myer, VA; Medfield, MA; Brighton, MA; Minneapolis, MN; Somerville, MA
Ad revenue – $1.08, up $0.21
Alltime Ad Revenue - $4.15

Looking at the numbers a bit, October was a bit of a down month for me. I wasn't able to write as much as I would have liked to, and what posts I did do, I felt like I was pressing with a lot of them. Unsurprisingly, the most popular days involved the Tag Team I did with Brenna McCabe, followed by some original research on the Boston Red Sox's free agency options. The Tag Team appealed to my Facebook friends, and the Red Sox post did well with Twitter friends.

So for November, my goal is to put some more effort and care into my posts, and that means focus. Normally, if I spend a bit more time on an entry and write it the night before it is due, then it is better received and more popular. It's kind of like doing a report for school... sigh. I can't escape it even though I graduated two years ago!

The picture comes from this site.

Stats, stats and stats - September 2009

Well, this proved to be popular last month, so I apologize for taking so long in getting it to you this month. I'll probably have October's stats up in a much more timely fashion. Also, as a scheduling note, football picks will now be on Saturdays, and Amanda Meyer's column will be on Sunday nights. That schedule seemed to work out well last week for everyone involved.

You can find September's stats here, by the way. If I get more motivated, I might eventually make some graphs and charts with these numbers. Anyway, on to this month's numbers:

Total number of visits – 543 (up by 135)
Total number of pageviews – 937 (up by 220)
Average time on site – 1:56 (down 7 seconds)
Percentage of new visitors – 42.73% (up about 4.73%)
Most popular days – Sunday, Sept. 13 and Sunday, Sept. 20 (29 visitors)
Least popular days – Friday, Sept. 25 and Saturday, Sept. 26 (10 visitors)
Top Five referrers – Twitter (19.52%), Blogger (17.13%), direct link (14.92%), Google (13.63%) and Google Images (5.89%)
Top Five states – Rhode Island (156 visits), Massachusetts (121), California (25), Virginia (25) and Mississippi (17)
Unpopular states – Nobody visited from Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, Delaware, South Carolina and Maine.
Top Five cities – Brighton, MA; Ft. Myer, VA; Medfield, MA; Cambridge, MA; Biloxi, MS
Ad revenue – $0.87, down $0.73
Alltime Ad Revenue - $3.72

The abacus picture comes from this splendid site here.

Storytime with Amanda Meyer: Seasonal shifts in the great coffee battle

So this fine Saturday, I want to talk about coffee. Specifically, I want to talk about my inability to start brewing my own and further inability to stop spending far too much money daily on my caffeine fix.

I’m a sucker for advertising. I define Corporate America’s targeted demographic. And yet, if Dunkin’ beat Starbucks, why does The Bux continue to beat my wallet on a daily basis? I’ll tell you why in four short words: pumpkin spice soy lattes. Okay Dunks, you win my vote on iced coffee, but fall is in the air. I know, I know, summer just ended, but if you don’t believe me, look at the foliage freaks screwing up traffic on 95N starting at the 128 Split all the way up to New Hampshire.

So other than the foliage and back to school, fall in Boston means that it’s a lot windier than I’d ever like it to be, and thus, my lattes double as a way to keep warm. Starbucks re-introduced the pumpkin spice flavor this week and I am already hooked. In my humble opinion, it’s absolutely perfect. The soy milk makes it extra thick and the nutmeg on top is like the icing on a cake.

“But Amanda! You live in Boston? Wouldn’t it be much more fun to hang out at some tiny hole in the wall cafe drinking fresh brewed coffee that isn’t mass produced?” Well, in a word, yes. But to elaborate, that takes time, time I don’t have as one of this city’s many impatient “Massholes,” and I like I said, their advertising is good. Basically what I am telling you is that getting out of bed early to brew coffee is less appealing to me than standing in a line, having an anxiety attack about being late to work, and spending no less than $5.21 (venti soy flavored latte with MA 6.25 percent sales tax) on enough espresso to get me through the day.

Call me crazy, but that’s just how I roll. And for the record, when I do have a lazy Saturday morning with nothing to do but homework or reading, I absolutely love scouting out “real” coffee shops and spending some nice time there with my iPod and my books. But in the great rush to work Monday through Friday, that is the last thing on my mind.

Making the pilgrimage to Sonic

[Left] The spoils of my trip.

Labor Day was especially, uh, special to me this year, because I finally completed one of my life's goals. No, I didn't make it with a lady, and how DARE you for thinking that. I got to visit my first Sonic, since one opened up in Peabody, Massachusetts about two weeks ago.

Firstly, the reports of the traffic jams around the restaurant are no exaggeration. My friend Amanda went with me - you might know her from a few past entries - and we sat in traffic from 4:15 p.m. until about 5:45 p.m., when we finally made it to the drivethru order box. The traffic literally stretched about a third of a mile back down Route 1 North, and that isn't counting the line for the pull-up service, which stretched down an adjacent street and behind a nearby hotel.

Anyway, before I get the comment that the food isn't that great - Yes, I knew that going in. But after getting besieged by clever, quirky advertising for Sonic for years, I really felt the need to go now that one was (relatively) close to me. Some of the food also seemed interesting enough to intrigue me, as did the wide drink selection.

So on the advice of my friend and blog commenter Kristi Coleman, I did try the cherry limeade, even though I don't normally do fancy drinks. This was the highlight of the visit, even though it was just a sharp cherry cola, with a lime, and plenty of crushed ice. It was strangely delicious - Maybe they added another ingredient that I didn't realize it?

The rest of my meal was somewhat ho-hum, though. I got Sonic's version of a big double cheeseburger, except it was $4 for something about the size of a McDonald's double cheese, except with pickles, lettuce and tomato on it as well. (It was about the size of two Wendy's Jr. Cheeseburgers.) Amanda and I both got tater tots, but they barely filled our cartons. I also got a steak, egg and cheese burrito - I decided to go big, because how often was I going to be visiting Peabody? - which was passably delicious.

However, as some old white guy probably once said, the journey matters more than the goal sometimes. Yes, the actual food was only average, but I was finally able to visit a medium-quality fast food restaurant that had been blitzing me with effective advertising since I was 17. What could be better than that?

Stats, stats and stats - August 2009

[Left] Why this album cover? Because it's the album with "Popular", like totally duh.

I always liked when Adam Carolla would announce his salary while he was doing the Loveline radio show, so in a sign of openness, I've decided to share my hit numbers and advertising revenue numbers with you, my faithful readers, after each month. While these numbers might be a little too “inside” for some, I'm always secretly curious about how popular various sites are.

That being said, there is nothing that surprisingly about my blog. From the comments, it probably isn't surprising that I don't get 50 million hit per day, or make enough money to buy a Hawaiian island. (Even a small one with just a single palm tree, like in a Far Side cartoon.) Also, since some have asked me how to support the blog: If you see an ad you LIKE, or that interests you, click it. Just trying to rapidly click them doesn't help, since it invalidates that batch, and it is possible that they think you or I am a spammer, and shut down your account or mine permanently.

Here is the breakdown for Saturday, August 1 to Monday, August 31:

Total number of visits – 408
Total number of pageviews – 717
Average time on site – 2:03
Percentage of new visitors – 37.99%
Most popular days – Monday, August 31 (30 visitors) and Sunday, August 16 (28)
Least popular days – Tuesday, August 11 (2 visitors)
Top Five referrers – Twitter (28.19%), Facebook (13.48%), Blogger (12.50%), direct link (11.52%) and Gmail (6.86%)
Top Five states – Rhode Island (136 visits), Massachusetts (95), Mississippi (27), California (22) and New York (13)
Unpopular states – Nobody from has ever visited by site from Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama, West Virginia, Delaware and Vermont.
Top Five cities – Biloxi, MS; Somerville, MA; Franklin, MA; Medfield, MA; Providence, RI
Ad revenue – $1.60, up from $0.52 in July