29 thoughts on “Readers”

  2. “This sucky blog?” Yours is one of the best.

    Do you have stats that say where progressive blog readership is going more generally? Or perhaps it is declining on the whole. I think the past three to six months has brought a wave of disaffection with the Obama administration, and that probably carries over into a lack of enthusiasm about social and political issues.

  3. Hey! I read it every day, several times a day. The problem is that you tell too much truth, too plainly. I suspect that some variation in readership is seasonal, like church attendance. People are out of the house more in the spring and summer.

  4. Invaluable blog, Susie. And I wish I weren’t budgeted to the penny — well, beyond the penny and having trouble paying off debts and hospital bills.

    But, when I win the lottery! You’re on my List. Not that that helps you now. Dammit.

    I think it may be down as people feel they can’t affect all that much, plus it’s summer and there’s more to do outside, etc. And not an election year. I noticed over at Corrente that a Quick Hit put up about Palin got 32 comments — usually the QH’s, no matter the topic, get very few comments.

    And yours is a place to find real info, with a few some socially oriented posts. People don’t just sit here and chit-chat, as they do as Eschaton. They come, find something important to share, maybe comment, often repost elsewhere with a link to your blog. You find really good stuff.

  5. Maybe people are moving to Twitter. I’ve started following you there as well. Do you get any numbers on that?

  7. Hell, most people I know read NO blogs. Facebook, yeah. Excessive texting of completely dubious value, yeah. But seeking out altnews sources? “You’re *weird*!”

    But yeah, you’re on my RSS feed (do your hits count RSS, btw?) and if I had to drastically trim my now-100 plus feeds, yours’d be one of the Final Five, easy. I check in with you at least five-ten times a day.

  9. Some things I’ve noticed:

    Pop up video ads slow my computer now so much that I avoided websites that have them. Then I got ad blocker.

    I think more people are using Netflix, so that slows things down too.

    More people may be getting rid of things that once were necessities, for instance, the ability to surf the web. We are in a depression you know.

    Once the weather gets good, people do more things outside the house. I watch a hobbyist forum a lot–there has been a large drop off of interesting threads and/or followup comments in roughly the same time period. Are you sure it isn’t seasonal?

    I don’t know about other folks but I come here for good links and cogent political observations, not weepy Peter Frampton videos. They’re obstacles to the good stuff.

  10. I would go BONKERS without this blog, without that feeling that there are other smart people who care about REAL things. Nobody I know at work or at home talks about the problems we’ve got in any real way. I have to read your blog several times a day so I don’t feel absolutely alone, like I’m the only person anywhere who cares about this stuff!

    I’ve tried to say “It’s just too much, too stressful, to care about what’s going on on this planet, you’ve got to stop paying attention!” Take a break, stop reading, just watch old movies and read good fiction. But I can’t. I need to know, no matter how much it hurts. Maybe a lot of people have dropped out mentally…I know I’ve come close to many mental breaking points over the last year, so maybe others have had to stop caring.

  11. I for one read this blog first everyday and often come back several times. You are absolutely the best aggregator of info that’s interesting to me. I admire your openness and expressiveness. I’m living on a
    shoestring, but would like to contribute a little.
    Is Paypal the only way to get money to you?

  12. You’re my home page! 50%, huh? I guess I’ll double up to 40 hits a day.
    Kurt’s got a point though. Headlines have been so freaking maddening since the Rethugs took office, some days I can’t bring myself to do more than scan before my head explodes. How do I read, analyze and think when my first instinct is to rush into the streets with a machete in one hand and my AK in the other.

  14. “The best aggregator…” I like that. You seem to get to the most interesting stories almost immediately, and I admire your perseverance in cranking them out every goddamn day. In a better world — one that wasn’t ruled by the corporate media, in which 90 percent of the population wasn’t brain-dead — you’d be getting paid well for what you do.

  15. Your research, and the information you uncover, is some very superb work. People have noted some good reasons above as to why readership may be down. I think one of the key reasons has to be the “roll over and die” Democrats. It’s mighty tough to fire up a progressive site when it becomes all too apparent that whenever the Rethugs say “Cut more – from YOUR constituency” the Dem response will be “Oh, OK”.

    The economy is in the dumper for all but the 1%-ers. Some folks may not be able to afford their internet connections anymore.

    And while it may seem strange to say it, there is the violent weather brought to us ever more plainly by climate change. Tornado after tornado and flood after flood and heat wave after heat wave. When people are spending significant portions of their time wondering if the levee is going to break or if this will be the storm that rips their roof off, they just may not be able to think in terms of reading and responding to blog information.

  16. Love your site, visit at least once a day. I get so mad most days after reading what you have and wonder how you keep doing it. Please don’t leave me in the dark.

  17. I like your blog and support it monthly. But I no longer support or even open email from the various Dem election, organizing and cheerleading groups or candidates. Nor do I support any Dem candidates financially (ok, except Grijalva, Grayson and a few others who are not afraid to speak their minds, but I don’t consider them real Dems). Dem leadership (except Pelosi, sometimes) is pathethic on both sides of Congress: Hoyer, Schumer, Durbin…ugh.

    “The other guys are worse” doesn’t cut it for me, and I’m not sure it’s true in the long run. The other guys may want to go faster, but all the bastards are headed in the same direction. Progressives are toast, politically speaking, and by the time the middle class really sees what’s happening to them it will be too late.

    I’m pretty close to giving up on U. S. politics altogether and taking Ian Welsh’s advice to “get out if you can….”

    Which would mean my internet time would be spent on researching the process of expatriating, rather than obsessively reading political blogs. But I’d still read you for the music.

  20. I read it and listen (the music) once or twice a day, but for God’s sake you need to get a job!

    Stop wasting your time on the blog.

  21. Love this place- occasionally disagree with your views, but you always make me think. I also love the music. Sometimes, I swear we must have been hanging out in the same places, loving the same sounds. I check this place 3-4 times a day. Please don’t disappear, I’m so grateful that you manage to continue to persevere.

  22. 1. Allowing for seasonal viewing patterns — just like network TV — how does the blog’s numbers compare to last year? Also, being a *political* blog, it will be down during non-election years, which are not primetime for it. So how do the numbers compare to 2009 and 2007?

    2. Trends: It’s not a group blog or a corporate blog — which have come to dominate, just as consolidation has occurred other industries.

    3. You’re in no position to categorize your single-person blog as “sucky.” You’re lack perspective on this.

  25. Don’t scare me like that. I thought maybe the Wellbutrin had quit working.

  26. You have a very good blog, well thought out and researched and well written and passionate. I subscribe to your RSS feed but cannot get it to appear on my Google homepage. I think I read your blog at least once a week but realistically I would check in more often if I saw it when I log in. Not sure what determines whether a site will appear on the homepage and what prevents it.
    Hope this is helpful.

  28. I know this wasn’t a “fishing for compliments” meta-post, but: What They All Said. I may not read you every day – I don’t have the chance to read ANYone every day – but yours is one of the first blogs I rush to catch up on during my free time. I think, by and large, blogs are slowly being considered the “older” new media, as social networking takes their place. I don’t think that many people read my blog any more even though I post daily content, because (a) my daily content isn’t really that much commentary, and (b) they’re all busy on the Facebook and the Twitter and playing with their cell phone apps. (Also, I don’t post that much commentary because I’m busy with my cell phone apps.) ‘Twas ever thus, as shiny new things supplant the old…

  29. Bugged me enough to figure it out. Click on ADD STUFF next to SEARCH box on your personalized Google page. On the next page, on the LEFT (not right) and down a ways is an RSS symbol and next to it it says ‘Add feed or gadget’. Add the URL of the website into the box provided. Worked for me.
    So now I’ve got your blog on my homepage and can follow it easily. Thanks for complaining – got me thinking. Like you do.

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