Influence by Directing Traffic: e=r/p

Natalie Glance (she-without-a-blog) pointed out a couple of articles to me about the effect of being cited on BoingBoing (see here for the first article which cites the second). The blogosphere is full of case studies of 1, so I'd like to throw in mine.

I recently got some attention with a post on mapping the blogosphere. This was cited on BoingBoing and I received a very sudden burst of traffic. Over the weeks, the post, and other similar visualization posts, got some mentions from other highly and moderately visible blogs. Something I noticed from this in terms of the volume of traffic that each delivered was that the volume was not simply a function of the number of readers of the citing blog. Obviously this is a large factor. However, it is also important to take into account how long the post is visible on the blog and where.

BoingBoing, with its multiple authors, has its posts shifting quite rapidly south. This meant that I got a lot of traffic, but it was relatively short lived. The other posts on a couple of less visible blogs (though significantly more visible than mine) resulted in more traffic due to the lower rate of posts. In other words, the citation was visible for a longer period of time.

One can model a blog in terms of its ability to direct traffic. The traffic is constant (well, let's assume it is), and the blog, in accordance with the posts it makes, can direct that traffic, like a water hose, at other blogs. BoingBoing is rapidly redirecting traffic to many blogs whereas other sites, with a slightly lower squirt power perhaps, may direct their hoses at a site for a longer period of time, thus giving a more thorough soaking.

This is pretty obvious stuff when you think about it, but with this model in mind, one should get excited about being cited in proportion to the function e=r/p where r is the readership and p is the post rate - rather than the less sophisticated model e=r.

Comments

[Webmetricsguru]

Thanks for referencing my study of the being linked to from Boing Boing on Amy Crehore's work; in fact, I would not have known about Amy's work had it not been for Boing Boing.

[Max Kalehof]

Matt,
What if you replaced the word "traffic" and replaced it with "attention". I think that would be a more accurate reflection of what is going on.
Max