Readership?

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Steady decline in FmH readership continues. Now ranging between 50-120 visitors per day, with an average of less than 100. This is, of course, exclusive of those following via RSS, but I’m not sure that is a substantial number. To those of you no longer visiting FmH, can you leave a comment (grin) explaining, thanks?

18 thoughts on “Readership?”

  1. FWIW, I went from checking online to RSS in the past year. There may be more of us than you think. Is there not a way to count feed-access hits?

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  3. Eliot,

    I guess I’m going through an RSS burn-out right now. I follow you on my reader but seldom click through to the blog itself.

    I do value your blog and am looking forward to celebrating your tenth anniversary soon!

    Sincerely,
    Joel

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  5. I’ve been reading you since almost the beginning, and I still check in every day via RSS. I think I stopped reading the ‘real’ blog around 2 years ago.

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  6. I wonder if I have underestimated the switch to RSS and (thanks for mentioning it, walker) Twitter. Is this a trend other bloggers who follow their daily hits have also seen?

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  7. I’ve read you for years, but always RSS. I think this is my first visit to your web site.

    If there is a readership decline I think it would be part of a secular trend — people shifting attention to other realms.

    Nothing wrong with FMH, it’s as fine as ever.

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  8. I agree with the Twitter explanation; Facebook too. Your “headlines” appear in so many places in my online world that there’s little incentive to visit your blog other than to follow a specific posting.

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  10. Ditto Jerry, though I’d say ‘less incentive’. Still a regular visitor because I like what you post.

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  12. There seems to be less commentary, and more just posting material from other places in recent months. I suspect we read a fair amount of the same stuff; what I’m interested in is what you think about it.

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  13. You are one of the first blogs I started reading about 8, 9 years ago now. Wow.

    I quietly lurk via my RSS reader now — want to say thank for for providing full feeds.

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  15. I read in RSS and surf on over to skim comments sometimes. And now that I know you’re on Twitter I follow you there, too. :)

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  16. Hi Eliot,

    This entry was a bit of a shock… I fear you may decide it’s not worth the effort.

    I can offer one explanation from my own experience. I don’t use RSS, but in general, over the past year I find myself doing less daily blog-reading. The problem is overload; once I start, I can pass many enjoyable hours linking around to the multiple ideas to which each interesting blink leads — too many hours, in fact. As a defense I’ve cut down somewhat on the number of blogs I follow (mainly, political blogs; I mainly follow TPM now). For the remaining ones, I “concentrate” my reading to fewer days. E.g., your blog is still very high on my list (as it always has been), but I tend to check only 2 or 3 times a week now, whereas in the past I checked several times a day. However, I still read (and appreciate very much) everything you write, but if you gauged my interest from how many hits you got from me, it would seem to decline over the past year.

    Follow Me Here is one of the best blogs I know, one of the ones that is dearest to my heart, and it’s simply amazing that you have produced such a steady flow of stimulating ideas for so long. I know one day you may get tired of it and stop (as you did a few years ago), but I very much hope that day is still far off.

    -Ray

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  17. Hey blog-twin,

    Yeah, my numbers have steadily decreased over recent years as well. (And it’s very rare nowadays that any post garners more than 1 or 2 comments.)

    I’m sure a lot of it is just people moving onto greener, or more consistently-updated, pastures — there’s a lot more options in the blogosphere than there was 10 years ago.

    That being said, I’ve also gotten the sense that many of the readers have, yes, moved to RSS feeds. Or, since my posts are now in my Facebook feed, that takes care of a lot of former readers too.

    Anyway, keep up the good work, and screw the numbers. :) If we were in it for the readership, I suspect we’d have folded up shop long before the coming 10-year-mark.

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  18. there is less of your own words, more copy/paste of stuff
    already seen elsewhere

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