Due to the sheer number of assumptions involved in this forumla, I'm posting this to theory. Lurking some comic sites and forums, I've noticed a number of discussions revolving around unique IPs and readership. It seems that a lot of people take thier uniques per day to be the end all and be all of thier readership numbers. But it occurs to me that most comics don't update seven days a week or one day day a week. So daily and weekly unques don't show you Real Readership numbers. Thus, I developed a simple formula to deduce Real Readership using monthly uniques, extrapolating the factors of casual readership and projected readership based on update schedule. It should work to produce a working, standardized Real Readership number from any comic site updating at least once a week. Formulas: Average Weekly Projection(w) = Monthly uniques(m) divided by 4 w=m/4 This is the first number you have to generate to begin finding your Real Readership (rr). Casual Readership variance(c) = Ten percent of your Average Weekly Projection(w) c=w*.10 This is the theorhetical number of people who do not read your comic at every update and thus are not counted when figuring in your update schedule. True Weekly Projection(t) = Average Weekly Projection, less the Casual Readership variance. t=w-c The True Weekly projection is simply the removal of the 10% casual readers before you begin the Real Readership formula. Real Readership= True Weekly Projection divided by the update frequency(u) of your comic, added to the 10% Casual Readership. r=(t/u) + c What this should give you is a real approximation of your readership, taking into account both casual readers and your update schedule.
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RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
Step 1) Post announcement on your site that you'll be giving free beer to all your readers.
Step 2) Count the people camped out on your doorstep the next day.
RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
Mmm....free beer. Great name for a band too:
"Who's playin tonight?"
"Free beer."
"We're THERE, dude."
-K
RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
Heh...gave this a try for a giggle...
Apparently I have 131 readers.
You beauty!
RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
Generally I just go by adding the daily number of hits on my strip on an excel spreadsheet. Since my strip is a single page attached to my portfolio my stats page doesn't say whether the hits are unique or not. But then averaging 25 hits a day (probably all friends) is depressing enough.
RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
No way I have 17,000 readers. If I do, they should fuckin hit that paypal button A LOT MORE OFTEN! *grrr*
RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
Ooops that was me, I forgot my pwd O_O
Gianna
http://www.thenoobcomic.com
RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
Still me.
1 - I love replying to my own posts, three in a row it's making me feel giddy.
2 - Montanto, I checked your comic and it made me laugh but since there are no prev-next buttons on the main page, I hit on archive, which took me to a january strip, and from there I was lost. What about a first-prev-next-latest button/link row? It really helps lazy and stupid readers like me :)
RE: Finding Real Readership numbers.
That's cool. According to this I nearly have 15,000 readers.
I don't believe it though.
-JoshM
I get 72 readers from this formula..... Scoff away, it's double what I expected! :D
Starting with the average of my monthly unique visitor counts for March, April and May (i.e. since the Daily Grind), your formula renders the figure 216 for daily readers, which is about what my daily unique visitor counts read, which is about double what my daily unique visitor figures were reading until February. Thanks, Scott! Thanks, Eric!
Well, that puts me at 271.5 readers. Imagine! Somewhere, half a person is reading my comic! Perhaps a quadriplegic, or a separated Siamese twin? Mathematics is so confusing.
Anyway, the problem with the casual readership percentage - aside from the fact that it's what mathematicians would refer to as 'anally derived' (i.e. you pulled it out of your bottom), is that it probably varies with the type of comic. Mine's kind of graphic-novely, so I imagine that a lot of people just read what I have up so far through once, and then maybe come back in a few months to catch up, if they liked it. As opposed to a gag strip, where there's a joke every strip, so there's a reason for readers to check in for every single update.
Of course, this is all moot, since I update once a week, which means I basically divide by four, which is what I was doing anyway.
like everybody else, i've found that tracking real numbers can be ellusive but its possible to get a sharper image of your traffic thru hosted software. at squirrelworks, we use a hosted service called ManticoreTechnology.com that tracks all our traffic very precisely and we can see how many people are online and what they're doing on the site live....ooooh....spoooky...like Big Brother of web comix muahhahahahahaha..... ^__^
We started out really small in 2001, but now generate about 1500-2500 unique visitors a day and 12,000 page views a day.
i know a lot of web hosts have a standard reporting interface, but if you look around, there's more advanced stuff out there that can help you really understand your web site crowd. :)
Aye. I use two stat counters, one (the one that comes with my server account) to track bandwidth, and another to track visitor paths. That last feature is very useful.