Just for interest’s sake, I extracted the comments table from my blog to see if I could come to any conclusions about the nature of blog commenting. My theory is that comments from non-bloggers have moved elsewhere: to Facebook and Twitter; to the recesses of the web that are difficult to plumb with any accuracy.
Of the past 1220 comments on this blog:
- 71% of the comments came from other bloggers, excluding myself.
- There’s been comments from 670 different people
- I’ve met every single one of the top twenty commenters in person, who account for about a quarter of all the comments.
So these days, while the readership is more diverse than ever, a large proportion of the conversation on this blog is taking place amongst a small group of people who know each other, which reaffirms the old adage about blogs being about community.
My theory about Facebook doesn’t however seem to come to much. Facebook lets you track the number of conversations on your shared items through Facebook Insights. While a huge number of people share or like my words on Facebook, there isn’t any notable conversation about them there, just a steady stream of more likes.
Long tail! Half of the commenters leave but a single comment.
Comments are in decline! Although this doesn’t take into account the frequency with which I post updates to the blog, so is meaningless.
Word cloud of every word in the comments. You people say “just like” quite often. Interpret as you will.
Love how you play around with statistics. So very true that a large % of comments of comments come from a few regulars, who are bloggers themselves.
Sometimes I think it’s because people who are just passing by might feel too scared to comment? It took me a month or so reading other’s blogs before I started commenting myself.
Always enjoy your research and studies on blog stats etc. Yeah, most of my blog comments are from other bloggers – there’s definitely community spirit at work. Occasionally I get a comment from a non-blogger and it’s nice to know they really are reading (or even trying out my recipes)!
The top 20 commenters only account for 25% of the comments? That’s much lower than I would have expected; you have a very flat distribution.
Nick – It is remarkably flat and not many people post just one comment (although, I’m pretty ruthless on spam). I’ll post some graphs when I get home.
Good idea- am not a regular blogger and only occasionally write a response. I am however a consistent reader of your blog. I sometimes try your recipes too.