Thoughts on Analytics & Comments

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

So, I removed the script from my site that allows Google to keep an eye on traf­fic. I offered my rea­son­ing for doing this as ‘one less thing to dis­tract from writ­ing and think­ing and working.’ This is true. I had a direct link to the data for this site, which I checked often enough. I real­ized, though, that no matter how many vis­i­tors I get, no matter how many traf­fic spikes I receive (how­ever big or small), none of it adds up to much if what I am writ­ing and pub­lish­ing doesn’t stir dis­course. If no one emails me in response, if no one posts a response on their own blog, what is it worth? Ain’t worth shhh.

Which brings me to com­ments. Or, the lack thereof on this here jour­nal. Just a few entries back I expressed pos­si­ble inter­est in allow­ing folks to com­ment on entries. But I have since been read­ing more ideas on the value of comments. I like the idea of pub­lish­ing ideas and engag­ing indus­try con­ver­sa­tion, but there is one form of ‘com­ments’ that I have long admired, which was inspired by the way John Gruber writes his Daring Fire­ball. Rarely rarely do you ever see him leave a com­ment on another site. His usual style is to write a response on his own web­site. And then you’ll see some­one else write a response to him on their web­site. Blog to blog. I like this. This is what I set out to do when I started this jour­nal, and I’ve decided to stay this form. (Jeremy Keith has a more con­vinc­ing post on blog com­ments, which was prob­a­bly the post that helped me to decide about whether or not to use them.)

From here on, I don’t mea­sure the ‘suc­cess’ of my jour­nal in terms of how many people are read­ing it (although I hope it evolves into some­thing good enough to merit at least that). From here on, I will mea­sure the worth of my jour­nal in two ways. First, am I grow­ing and expand­ing my own under­stand­ing of design by what I am writ­ing and pub­lish­ing? If yes, I am doing well. Second, are people respond­ing (pos­i­tively or neg­a­tively) on their own web­sites or via email? If yes, I am doing well. If I am not achiev­ing either of these, I don’t have any good reason for continuing.