I humbly continue to be astounded by the rate at which my RSS subscriber base is growing. At just 200 in December, and around 350 just 30 days ago, we've rocketed through the next marks, hitting 500 subscribers just Monday, and a whopping 606, according to FeedBurner, as of today - showing 85% growth in the last month alone!But then I started thinking. It's all my fault. It's not necessarily due to good content, or scoops, or anything like that... as much as I'd like it to be... it's because as I've gravitated toward talking more and more about RSS readers, RSS distributors and link blog aggregators, I've attracted the people most likely to be comfortable with RSS, and want to know more about RSS, and who are most likely to be no more than 2 clicks away at any time from adding yet more feeds to their undoubtedly overflowing reader software.
It's essentially a byproduct of gaining a focused audience who is in line with one of the metrics by with this blog is measured. While total page views are increasing, due to the niche focus we've had here of late, that number is growing even more. Every time we talk about AssetBar, FeedBurner, FriendFeed, LinkRiver, ReadBurner, RSSMeme, or Shared Reader, we're only offering an article as the next drug hit for RSS addicts.
So I came to the conclusion that this otherwise impressive spike is no more valuable than saying the ice cream man does better business when the sun is shining, or that if I made this blog all about my beagle, I just might get a lot of dog lovers here. While I can get all excited about plowing through 500 and 600 like a hot knife through butter, it's silly to do so. Now, the hard part will be keeping on topic and keeping my new RSS converts entertained.
I was hoping you were going to quote There Will Be Blood:
ReplyDelete"If I have a milkshake... and you have a milkshake... and I have a straw... and my straw reaches acroooooossssss the room.... I. DRINK. YOUR. MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT UP!"
Oh well. Good point, though it still indicates a growing readership, which is more than I can claim at this point. But I'm working on it!
I completely disagree. What you're saying makes perfect sense, but I doubt that just because you're mentioning RSS here and there is the reason to your more recent success. Of course it helps, but I think, especially for RSS nuts, no one is going to subscribe to shitty content. You're content is fresh, it's headlining, and it's great! Game. Set. Match. It's great! I GReader set to view personal blogs first just so I can see what you've posted today.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you'll have a problem keeping your subscribers entertained as long as you stay on topic, which you're doing, and very nicely might I add.