I'm not sure what the RSS/Twitter/Facebook flame fest is all about. Or I suppose more to the point, why any of us care.
Unless your audience is the extremely narrow TechCrunch demographic, nobody should be making strategic business decisions based on TechCrunch referrer stats.
I suppose this is just a good, old-fashioned brawl in the tech world echo chamber.
I didn't realize thats what this screenshot is about. Keep in mind that a lot of twitter traffic is counted as (direct) in Google Analytics because there is no referer included.
Interesting that HN traffic seems fairly low quality (assuming Page Visits and Time on Site as measurements of quality - only Stumbleupon and Countermotions provide lower figures on those metrics). Perhaps this demonstrates that HN visitors read the article, then return here to discuss rather than exploring the site.
Could it have something to do with the reading speed of users?
I know that I read a lot faster than some of my old school friends. And not as fast as some old uni friends. But I'd guess the average HN reader was a fair bit faster reader than your average reader.
Though compared to the your average reader, I suspect Fred Wilson's are probably faster than average... so are HN visitors faster readers than average avc readers?
On the Internet, reading speed becomes less important than the level of skimming. Even a very fast reader, if they really read an article, are going to be "slower" than most who approach the article, I think.
Time On Site is a metric that compares the delta between timestamps of 2 different page views. If someone comes in reads a blog post then leaves, Google Analytics counts it as 0:00, and a bounce.
HN readers are more likely to read a blog post then hit back (and maybe comment). The bounce rate and TOS aren't a valuable metric for this audience.
This is why I like the GetClicky / MixPanel approaches to bounce rate better. I might have the details wrong, but the idea is as long as the page is your active browser window/tab for more than N seconds, you will no longer be counted as a bounce (despite only performing one action).
They can constantly reping to estimate your time-on-site within the ping frequency.
8 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 30.8 ms ] threadUnless your audience is the extremely narrow TechCrunch demographic, nobody should be making strategic business decisions based on TechCrunch referrer stats.
I suppose this is just a good, old-fashioned brawl in the tech world echo chamber.
I know that I read a lot faster than some of my old school friends. And not as fast as some old uni friends. But I'd guess the average HN reader was a fair bit faster reader than your average reader.
Though compared to the your average reader, I suspect Fred Wilson's are probably faster than average... so are HN visitors faster readers than average avc readers?
Original article: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/01/rss-continued.html
HN readers are more likely to read a blog post then hit back (and maybe comment). The bounce rate and TOS aren't a valuable metric for this audience.
They can constantly reping to estimate your time-on-site within the ping frequency.