Unquestionably the second most popular
If anyone had been disposed to doubt that I am the second most popular author on the Guardian blog[1], here is the proof. Of course, as you can see, rather as with the proposition that "Britain is unquestionably the world's second strongest power", there is rather a drop-off between number one (Charlie Brooker) and the rest of the field.
[1]Or at least, second most popular among bloglines subscribers. I realise it says "third" there, but I have adjusted the statistics to take account of the fact that I don't understand what the hell "bloglines" is, but if I did I could subscribe to my own posts and get my missus to do so, thus bumping me up the ranks. I seem to remember that the Henry 'Scoop'Jackson Society analysis had to play some pretty funny analytical games to get us above China too.
Alternately, by posting in randomly timed bursts rather than continuously, you are the sort of blogger whose readers most benefit from a subscription service.
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'
As I say, I am pretty sure that I could name all sixteen. I think it's because most of my readers are fans of blogs and know all about feeds, whereas the readers of, say, Sir Simon Jenkins are more likely to get his articles printed out for them on Basildon Bond paper by their butlers, and butlers don't use RSS feeds.
ReplyDeleteI was unaware you could get your CiF articles via bloglines, so I wasn't one of the 16, but I am now one of the 17.
ReplyDeleteSome of them are public, so you can see who they are- I only recognise David.
ccr - subscribed since April 21, 2006
cgm - subscribed since October 27, 2006
davidweman - subscribed since March 27, 2006
edOcGij4 - subscribed since February 3, 2007
JohnHardy - subscribed since May 18, 2006
sil - subscribed since March 23, 2006
skwilson - subscribed since December 10, 2006
vonbladet - subscribed since March 24, 2006
Seems unfair! - London / Paris stockbroker Dsquared being the more popular hammer of Decentism than heroic life-saving and self-sacrificing Conor Foley.:)
ReplyDeleteStill, at least Conor gets a Normblog Profile.
Before we get carried away, I ought to point out that the guy I linked to absolutely isn't using that league table as a measure of anything; he's just making the point about how different newspaper blogs are from "real" blogs.
ReplyDeleteI've just realised why I'm there - it's not just a blogger/MSM thing because there are lots more popular bloggers than me who aren't there and indeed AFAICT I'm the only blogger in the top 15. I think that Richard Sanderson at Baggage Reclaim once posted a link to my Guardian RSS feed, and I bet I got almost all of those signups via that link.
Well John Hardy is the kind of sound fellow who regularly turns up on my blog to congratulate me on my excellent posts, so I'm not sure he came from that source.
ReplyDeleteBut why oh why isn't there an RSS feed for this blog?
ReplyDeleteThere is. I've apparently been subscribed to it since May 21, 2004.
ReplyDeleteAh, you're right, there is! But it ain't discoverable from the main page by any of my newsreaders. I had to figure out the secret address of the feed by analogy with my own skeleton Blogger account. Obviously this is some sort of IQ test to keep the riff-raff out. I heartily approve.
ReplyDeletewanna know the truth? It's late and I'm drunk, so I will reveal that the reason there isn't a proper RSS feed for this blog is that the last time I tried to sort one out, Chris Lightfoot was helping me and I am superstitious that something else awful will happen if I try again. True.
ReplyDeletethe above post should surely be tagged "things I'm going to delete in the morning"
ReplyDeleteYou do have an RSS feed on this blog. In fact you have 47 blogline subscribers here (which uses the RSS feed). That's in addition to all those who use other software/websites to read blogs.
ReplyDeleteIn bloglines you can just paste in the URL of a weblog and it finds the RSS or does something which mimics it, as I've never found a weblog it doesn't work on.
ReplyDeleteRSS feed; Atom feed.
ReplyDelete