Someone had asked me about traffic patterns on WordPress.com the other day and whether or not they followed a "long tail." I knew the answer was yes, and I guestimated the numbers from memory at around 80% outside the top 10 blogs. It's actually a little more acute: 92.63% of the traffic to WordPress.com is for blogs outside of the top 25. (About 8.4 million pageviews in the past week.) This is from Google Analytics, so doesn't include RSS or anything like that.
Monthly Archives: July 2006
Bryan Veloso
Words and Software
Long Tale
Upcoming
I will be… at Blogher this weekend, live on the PHP Arch podcast on Friday, at WordCamp on August 5, speaking at BayCHI on August 8, going into a coma, at BarCamp Austin on August 26, and finally back to New York at the end of the month. I will probably not be spending enough time here.
New RSVP
I just got an invitation to a wedding via Facebook. I don't know what this means, but I feel like something just shifted.
Packt CMS Nomination
If you have a favorite open source CMS, consider nominating it for the Packt Open Souce CMS award.
37signals Investment
I [heart] WordPress
Some folks on the WordPress.com forums have come up with some really wacky I [heart] WordPress logos.
Amazon Grocery Update
Remember the TP Amazon Grocery order I blogged about before? Here’s how it ended up. Don’t think I’ll use Amazon Grocery again. I went to Safeway yesterday.
OpenDNS
OpenDNS is a great idea, well-executed. They took something basic and ubiquitous, DNS, and improved it by adding spell-checking and phishing protection (usability enhancements). They provide the service for free in exchange for monetizing typo search pages. The typo search pages are simple, fast, and generally useful. What I was looking for is usually the first result. There is no software to install, just two settings to change, and they provide a registration-free way to set preferences on their site. John Roberts is a friend from my CNET days and gave me a preview a few days before they launched, I've been using it full-time ever since and it has been invisible in all the right ways.
Future of Web Apps
Just a reminder, I'm speaking at the Future of Web Apps summit here in San Francisco September 13-14 with Kevin Rose (Digg), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Evan Williams (Odeo), Steve Olechowski (FeedBurner), Cal Henderson (Flickr), Tom Coates (Yahoo!), Tantek Celik (Technorati), Michael Arrington (TechCrunch), Jeff Veen (Google) and Ted Rheingold (Dogster). Should be a good show.
REI 5ives
Five things I had to keep explaining to the guy at REI, my day yesterday. Hat tip: Merlin Mann on my fake rock shoe tester photo.
dot info
Some days don't you want to just blacklist all of .info? More spam there than anything else except maybe .com or .be, and certainly a higher percentage than any other top-level domain.
Airborne Mythes
WordCamp Update
So 1 day after the announcement, 104 people have signed up that they're coming to WordCamp and 58 have joined the mailing list. Wow! Thank you, as this has been a huge help in determining what sort of resources we're going to need to pull this thing off. Now the big challenge is finding a venue appropiate for the event, feel free to ping me if you have any ideas.
WordPress Podcast
There is a new WordPress podcast blog, podcasting the various goings-on in the WP world. Subscribed!
WordCamp – WordPress Conference
The idea for an event for WordPress users has been bouncing around in my head for a long time, as there is a really interesting group of people around WP but we don't do nearly as many face-to-face interactions as some similar projects. A set of circumstances are coming together at the beginning of August, and I think we're going to give it a go.
August 5th, 2006 is the date, here in the lovely town of San Francisco, California. The idea is a one day BarCamp-style free conference with a party that night. There will be free BBQ for lunch, WordPress t-shirts, and a full day of both user and developer discussion. ("BarCamp-style" is a code phrase for "last minute.")
There are still a few things to figure out, such as a venue, schedule, and other little things like that. (By the way, if you can help with any of these or have event experience, please drop me a note.) But mostly I wanted to get the date out there so people could start planning for it, buy tickets if they're travelling, and let us know if there are any huge conflicts that day. (Like a national holiday or something.)
In the meantime, I've put up a quick site where you can leave your email to signup for more information or let us know you're coming. If you think you can make it, please say so as soon as possible so we can prepare for the right number of people. If you'd like to help in any way, drop me a note via email or in the comments.
Don't know if this will work or not, but it should be fun regardless. Podz is coming in all the way from England, and Donncha from Ireland. 🙂
Hasselhoff Music Video
This David Hasselhoff music video, Jump in My Car, is a must-watch. There has to have a good story behind it.
Rapunzel
A little Thursday music treat to round out this short holiday week: Rapunzel. Live in Chicago 1998 with the Dave Matthews band. The entire CD is fun, and this track has a particularly good sax solo.