readers

One of the things I've been wanting to do for a while seems to be finally nearing completion. Google Analytics allows you to segment users into custom segments, and there's one segment I've been aching for.

(This is a story I wrote for the Globe that ran in the Review section of Tuesday’s newspaper. I’m posting it here for anyone who might be interested but doesn’t read the newspaper). Necessity is the mother of invention, the old saying goes. But boredom and the desire to experiment are powerful forces too, says Canadian author Michael Winter. That’s how he came up with the idea to “serialize” his latest novel on Facebook, the hot social-networking site.

We can all agree, I think, that for things we like, full is better than partial. This goes for nudity, chocolate donuts, and cleanliness. But we're really talking about readership here, and text feeds, and the ongoing riff between reader and publisher regarding subscriber entitlement. Publishers, who tend to favor partial RSS feeds and work them like broadcast news teasers, want readers to click through and visit the website. If increasing page views is the goal, then this makes intuitive sense.

People have debated whether content is really king for some time, and for content producers, it seems a no-brainer: create quality content and the audience will come. That's the way it's always been, that's how it will remain. A survey about blog readership conducted by Vizu confirms that mantra, and reinforces the importance of good writing.

It pains me to suggest this, but we must ignore (one of) the teachings of Strunk and White.  We must turn our backs on a number of other writing guides.  And we must break our own habit of writing out numbers as words. Instead, we should represent numbers with numerals - a recent eye-tracking study suggests that they’re much more likely to capture online readers’ interest.

I’m busy, you’re busy. So are the folks that are reading your words. Whether you write white papers, articles or blog entries, it is important to meet the needs of the skimmer.

When it comes to finding blogs 67.3 percent of readers rely on links from other blogs, according to a new report from Vizu Answers and Ad Age. Aside from links on other blogs, recommendations account for 23 percent of blog finds. Search accounts for 19.6 percent of blog finds and blog search engines make up 5.6 percent of blog finds.

As a pair of bloggers take their media seats in the highly visible Scooter Libby trial in a Washington federal courtroom, it has been learned that the Associated Press will carry the bloggers' trial coverage.