Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston |
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Management Update 7
Site Traffic
Site traffic measures in April were all around 15% down on March, not particularly surprisingly, as traffic on this site is primarily on business days, and there were only 17 of those in April compared to 23 in March.
Publishing
The reduced number of working days is also somewhat reflected in publishing stats. We published 52 new posts in April, and 1029 comments. We didn’t publish 13 abusive or content-free comments: total intended for publication and not published 13/1029=1.3%
Webdiarists
381 people have registered to submit comments, up from 360 at the end of March.
109 of you have made in total 161 donations. Not all of those who donated are registered to comment. Continuing thanks to all of you for your support.
Finances
Income in April was lower, following the end of the Australian Ethical Investments advertising contract. We received $1547 in donations, and $684.53 from advertising, total $2231.53, versus expenditures of $4679. We have terminated the contract with Nielsen//Netratings, saving $550 per month. Clearly unless income picks up we will have to reduce other costs. On that point, only 1 in a 1000 Google ads on this site get clicked on by any of you …
David Roffey,
Managing Director,
Webdiary P/L
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Getting back on track...
Hi folks, it's been a while since I've contributed comments.
May's nearly over and hopefully the financials will have popped up a bit.
I'm worried by the $$ supporting this endeavor. My maths says that you get less than $10 per contribution.
Also, based on your expenses it costs $4600 to run the site. That's $90 per new article (assuming it costs little to host existing articles).
Assuming they attract most of the eyeballs, they're also the place where your ads will need to hit home, otherwise the only way to ramp up the $$$ is to publish more - not really practical.
I keep harping on about this, but you do have the basis for AdSense revenue. Your article above implies that there's reader obligation to click on the ads. I still think the real question is the site layout and the position of the Ads. Why not try putting a set of Ads below the article and before the comments as well as where you currently put them? Track them differently with AdSense "campaigns" and compare? It won't reduce the ad count for chemical detectors etc, but it's a start.
Also, on another note, With 50+ per month, that's quite a few to get through even for a dedicated reader. You're stats from last month impled that the average reader stayed for 10 mins and reviewed 5 pages.
Now, I think it would be quite easy to email summaries of the new articles to subscribers - you have the basis of this and I could probably help set up a simple process for this. You can take your RSS feed (you do know it's there - right? At http://www.webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/feed ) and create a mail-out based on the data.
It would help bring people directly to relevant articles and drive up readership retention. Also, it gives people the opportunity to forward the mail to other interested people who might not have heard of the site. If you asked people to forward them on then you'd get a big boost. your challenge then would be to get them to register.
You've got my email address - drop me a line and tell me what you think - you could trial this out with little or no effort.
Keep up the good work!
Ian
A Jameson Drinking Scotch?
Do you mean some of them have discernment?
Nah. It's on special this week. Two bottles for fifty bucks.
Got a few crates in myself.
Never thought I'd see the day
A Scot drinking Jamesons? Do you mean some of them really have discernment?
Let's be exact
First, may I refer Scott Dunmore to Arthur Herman's The Scottish Enlightenment Fourth Estate (Collins) London 2001.
Secondly, I charge $4,000 a day and am worth every cent. Getting any bastard to pay is an entirely different matter.
The pommy, the jock and the paddy's drop
Bloody skite. With my personality I reckon I'm worth twice that but can barely afford Jamesons. What gets right up my nose is people who haven't got a discerning bone in their body (no, I'm not referring to Scots or lawyers neccessarily), increasing the price of a precious commodity by their unreasonable demand. If I find out you stick coke or dry or even ice in it, watch out.
A wee drop
Catfood Stew
'Marge, our lad Mal is back in the headlines again. He reckons he's worth four thousand quid a day! Struth, how much is that a year? I know you're not a walking abacus, Marge. How much is our pension then? ...Not much is it, dear? Bet our Mal doesn't get meals on wheels...I know...I know... there's nothing wrong with them and...yes, the lady is nice.
The boyo also reckons his customers are...well, luv, I know you don't like swearing...let me just say their parents weren't married. I know it's a sin, Marge, but it does happen. What do you mean, "What happens?" Forget I said anything, petal.
In the next life think I'll be a lawyer like our Mal. What, dear? I'm too stupid? Who got us eating the catfood stew, then? Saved us heaps!'
Starvin' Malcolm
Discernment
Scott: Indubitably. Maybe even invariably. Certainly unerringly.
A most modest proposal
Oh Bob, it was merely a Modest Proposal ... but most sincerely meant.
Time out
I'm not at the moment particularly interested in the financials - I am much more concerned about people's wellbeing.
It's now six months since Hamish took over the rudder. To my knowledge, he's had at most 36 hours away from the site at any time. Does anyone else here think that he deserves a proper break?
Hamish: um...
Dr Reynolds' Grand Idea.
Fiona, 36 hours? That long? Seriously, I agree a proper break is deserved and most probably needed. I like your priorities. Now for making it happen ...
Tell the young people of today that
Means-test contributors.
'Ere, our modest Mal is saying he gets a measly four thousand smackeroos a day while our Webdiary is struggling financially. I reckon they should means-test contributors and charge the big-shots to publish their groaning bloody epistles. Wha'da you reckon, Marge? What, dear? Jesuz! I think a hundred bickies is a bit much. After all, he's a bloody Scot! Don't want him 'avin a 'eart attack! He might sue us!
On a bit of a slope
The site at the moment is on a downward trend financially. Clearly, advertising is not the way forward. I for one never click on or read ads on the internet, and would add that very few people seem to have found a way of making money on the web except as website designers and such, who set up business websites etc. Google, I understand, will prioritise your website for a fee on their search engine, so that it does not turn up after say, 192 clicks on the mouse.
I like the way the comments follow the contributor’s article on Webdiary. I may be wrong, but the greatest number of comments and of commenters was on Phil Uebergang’s series on ‘Intelligent Design’. That was a lively debate, and seemed to draw commenters, all seeking the last word, from all over the world.
At least one Webdiarist, (Damian Lataan) set up his own weblog while contributing to Webdiary. It has since disappeared from Google’s view. Most blogs linked to by serious bloggers such as those in normblog , Lastsuperpower , Sydney indymedia , Oliver Kamm , Pundit Guy , David Aaronovitch , Apostablog and PooterGeek (I could go on and on and on…) are maintained by a few people with enormous energy and dedication.
I am told by certain friendly nerds (‘FriendlyNerds’: what a good site name!) that it does not cost all that much to set up a website, if all you are doing is posting things on it. When you want to interact with all and sundry, you need moderators to protect you from defamation actions, supervise registration and postings, etc. Visitor moderation appears to be the norm on some sites (eg the Guardian’s Comment is Free)
Maybe Webdiary should be funded by its contributors, who would each have a blogspot of their own on the site, with space for comments as on the present setup. What I do like about Webdiary is the uncomplicated layout of the home page, with so much information on display and easily accessible via the scroll keys and mouse. The 381 registered commenters, many who are on first name terms but have only met in cyberspace, provide a certain party atmosphere, festive at times, and mostly good humoured. This is a very attractive feature of the site. Webdiary is distinct for the prominence it gives to commenters. It is a valuable institution, and I believe draws a readership few if any of us could attract should we set up our own individual sites. (MalcolmBDuncansPlace might attract quite a few hits, but MacDougallsBlog would likely be bogged, frogged, sogged, hogged, clogged, and snogged more than deblogged.)