Blog Performance - October 2008

Hasty correction: I showed this post to Helen who pointed out two errors. The team is the women's team, not the mixed one (ouch!). It follows that the girl with the ball is not Helen (double ouch, damn!), although she does play centre from time to time. I have let the photo and story stand with corrections despite my blushes because I still think it illustrates my points.

The Post

This photo is from the recent university games in Melbourne, eldest (incorrect) with the ball. As centre in this case, Helen's (the centre's) task is to get the ball clear to one of her players so that they can shoot. Centres are not allowed into the forward part of the court.

It's quite cerebral, something that Helen enjoys. The rival centre has already jumped to try to block a shot. You can see Helen (the centre) swivelling to to try and find a clear path. The UNSW player in the centre left is moving to the left followed by the rival wing defence. Helen may shoot to the left, or straight forward since the wing defence's left move is opening up a path to the UNSW player at the back.

Netball is Australia's largest women's sport.In this case, although no boys are in the photo, the team is mixed sex, adding to the enjoyment. These were Helen's first university games and she had a fantastic time.

This post is in fact about the usual end month navel gazing. However, I thought that I would throw something in for variety.

The Statistics

Total visitor numbers on my various blogs to end October follow. I came closer than expected to cracking the 100,000 mark and will certainly do so in the next two weeks.

Blog	End September	End October	October Visitors
Personal Reflections	38,654	41,280	2,626
Managing the Professional Services Firm	17,942	18,585	643
New England, Australia	16,115	16,967	852
Regional Living Australia	10,519	10,994	475
Management Perspectives	6,063	6,606	543
New England's History	2,487	2,765	278
History of Australian and New Zealand Thought (joint)	1,236	1,307	61
Belshaw sans words	279	343	64
Total	93,295	98,847	5,552

Looking at patterns, the table below sets out total visitor numbers by month. October was a record month. I have clearly reversed the mid year slump associated with low posting.

Month	Visitor Numbers
October	5,552
September	4,857
August	3,991
July (average June/July)	3,962
June (average June/July)	3,962
May	4,296
April	4,536
March	4,294
February	3,710
January	3,656
December 2007	2,844
November	3,612

Total page views follow. These are not directly comparable with visitor numbers because they come from a different system. However, they do indicate trends.

Total page views in October (provisional) were 13,953 as compared to 12,160 in September, 9,859 in August, 9,292 in July, 10,635 June, 10,846 May, 11,058 in April, 10,969 in March, 9,456 in February, 9,485 in January, 7,447 in December, November 9,239.

Comment

This was another heavy posting month during which I made further progress in reducing the posting backlog. However, the plans I set at the end of the last month for the development of my Cinderella blogs were swept away by the global financial crisis.

Still, I shouldn't complain too much. It is a long while since I have written so many economics posts, and it's certainly refreshed my economics! It's also had the side effect of energising the Management Perspectives blog, previously something of a Cinderella in its own right.

Yes, I know that I have too many blogs. My continuing rationalisation is that each serves a different purpose, forcing me to write across my areas of interest.

There is obviously a quality/quantity issue in writing as many posts as I do, as well as a time issue. What I do find, however, is that the blogs have become my main store of my own intellectual capital, replacing material that I used to write but then store on the hard drive.

Given my somewhat peculiar interests, I find this interesting in its own right. With cloud computing much in discussion just at present, I seem to have morphed into a cloud computing person. Good to know that am still up with the trends!