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March 24th, 2005 Thoughts On Blogging Audiences - In Blog, Hugh Hewitt suggests that audience size and influence are related, but not proportionately. His suggestion is that blogs with large audiences have large influence, but blogs with small audience have large influence too, if the audience has a particular membership. For example, Instapundit has a large influence because his blog is widely read. The SchmuckatelliBlog that is read by only the President of the United States is also an influential blog, simply because its audience, though uniquely small, is the President. The TLB Ecosystem appears to rank blogs by their traffic and their inbound links. I suggest there is a better way of measuring influence than that. To adopt Hewitt's conclusion, I suggest the following formula. The influence of a blog (I) is determined by the number of links from a particular site (LL) multiplied by the size of the linking site's audience per day (AL), expressed in thousands, summed over all linking sites, added to the audience size of the blog (AS), per day. Mathematically, Is = Σ(LL*AL) + As For example, MM.net has 3 permanent links according to TTLB (I know, it claims 4, but only 3 are identified) from blogrolls, one per site: JG.com, Anthroblogogy, and Cowboy Blob's Saloon, Humidor, and Shootin' Parlor. Their audience sizes, according to SiteMeter, are unknown, 39, and 36, respectively. Calculating by the above formula gives a base influence of: Imm = Ljg*Ajg + Lab*Aab
+ Lcb*Acb + Amm Jeremy's audience is in red because for some reason, his TLB Ecosystem page does not list his average daily visits, probably because he doesn't have a SiteMeter page. Bad Jeremy. Now, suppose Hugh Hewitt links to one of my articles. His audience is enormous compared to mine, so a link from his page is big news. An average audience of 26,694 gives me an Influence measure of: Imm = Lhh*Ahh + Ljg*Ajg
+ Lab*Aab + Lcb*Acb + Amm A substantial improvement. There are problems, of course. Suppose Instapundit links to me twice in one day instead of Hugh. That would make the formula evaluate as follows: Imm = Lip*Aip + Ljg*Ajg
+ Lab*Aab + Lcb*Acb + Amm Of course, this is a disproportional increase in influence relative to audience size. The links from Instapundit increases my influence by a factor of 388.371 / 53.117 = 7.31, but the link from Hugh increases it only by a factor of 79.811 / 53.117 = 1.50. The ratio of their audience sizes is 6.28, so the increase in influence is not quite proportional to the increase in audience size. The difference between influence factors is 7.31 - 1.50 = 5.81; close to 6.28, but I'm not sure what that number represents. When calculating the situation with one link from Instapundit results in an Influence measure of 220.744. This represents an increase factor of 4.16, still not proportional. Further, this does not take into account the possibility of repeat audience (that is, someone who reads both HughHewitt.com and Instapundit.com). To measure the audience more carefully you would have to count the audience member in only one of the audiences, but which one do you count it in? Comments? Census Numbers, The Constitution, and Terri Schiavo - [Preface: I Am Not A Lawyer BUT] I know this is an arcane subject, but Bravo has The West Wing on in the evening and the topic came up. Toby the speechwriter was in a meeting with three congressmen, one of whom was a black civics teacher at a high school before replacing his deceased wife in the House or Representatives. The issue was the progress of an appropriations bill and the congressmen's stances on census sampling (two were against, the black rep was undecided). The White House was for sampling, as it supposedly gave a more accurate count of the population. Toby has his assistant read from Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution:
The ellipses were in the script. Toby used it to get the Congressmen, particularly the Black (former civics teacher) congressman, to admit the language was archaic, and therefore, (obviously) they didn't need to follow it, and could legally accept proportional sampling as a means of counting the people in the country. Boy am I glad the teacher who taught American Government to me in high school wasn't that gullible. The entire clause Toby's aide read no longer exists in the Constitution. It was rescinded by the 14th Amendment, Section 2, the first sentence of which reads:
Ahem. It pays to know your Constitution, so that others cannot use your ignorance to suck you into something that isn't actually legal. Note in particular the words whole number of persons. This means that proportional sampling is unconstitutional, as it does not count the whole number of persons. If there is a problem with census counting (like cost) suck it up as the price of the Republic. If there's a problem with counting how many actual people there are, figure out a way to count the actual number of people. Don't presume to know that there is a particular proportion of homeless or resident aliens, go find out exactly how many there are. And don't, under any circumstances whatsoever, ignore or change the Constitution for the sake of your own petty little projects. Which brings us to Terri. The 14th Amendment also guarantees in Section 1 that:
Michael Schiavo, via the Florida courts, is trying to deny Terri her life without conducting a trial in which her wishes, in regards to sustaining her life, are examined and investigated. This is blatantly wrong. He has decided that she shall not get treatment that would conclusively show (or disprove) a persistent vegetative state - no MRI has been performed. This is blatantly wrong. The courts have, in effect, ruled against her without hearing her case. This constitutes a lack of due process. Congress and President Bush, in passing and executing the law they did this week, executed the Congress' power under the Constitution to decide jurisdiction for the courts. These arguments that this is not in accordance with the tenets of Federalism is crap. States are to guarantee equal protection under the law and in this case the inferior jurisdiction, Florida, is not doing so. The superior jurisdiction, the Federal Government, has taken up the slack. They are protecting a person's right to life where Florida will not. For God's sake, the Nazis used to do this to the Jews in WW2. Do we really want to allow this because to not interfere with the Florida Courts would not keep with the spirit of Federalism? Pardon me, I thought the idea of Federalism was to prevent the civil government from destroying the rights of the individual, among these are life, liberty, and happiness. But I guess I, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson were wrong in that regard. As a recently married man I cannot comprehend how a man would actively seek the death of his wife. It boggles my mind and indicates to me a complete lack of character that disqualifies Michael from being the guardian of Terri. His sole, unsubstantiated claim that she wanted to be taken off subsistence is the hinge upon which this case pivots. It has no corroboration. It has no admissible substance. It is lacking in every sense. The courts have erred in accepting it as the will of the woman in question. They have a responsibility before God and us to immediately grant Terri's parents their request to reinstate her feeding tube. But as I read the headlines this morning (and look over what I wrote yesterday, above) the Supreme Court has denied the petition to hear the case. Now, barring armed intervention to reinstate feeding, Terri will die. That will be a great evil, and a national shame. Poetry - Dad had an astronomy question the other day, asking the name of a star. This poem, Lost in the Stars, gives the answer. As the rhyming is crude and the meter a bit stubborn, you can probably guess correctly that this is one of mine. Should you get lost deep in the woods Look for the Big Dipper, it points you north The dipper's handle arcs south, towards a great star Or start at the queen and look lower right He leaves in the East the great Aries the Ram He's battled by Orion, the hunter well known The twins gaze from above, Pollux and Castor Keep going east and we'll end up in Virgo |
Toys |
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This site is copyright 2001-2005 by Matthew Maynard. All rights reserved. All your trademarks, copyrights, insignia, and other distinguishing characteristics are belong to you. Sharks in suits make for good joke material. Don't leave a mess on your way out. Links to external websites are valid at the time of article authoring and may decay as time goes by. But we'll always have Paris. The opinions on this site are those of their author and do not represent anyone else's views. That is, unless and until you agree with them, at which point they become yours as well. Opinions expressed in the comments belong to the comment poster and may be edited for content. Play nice with others, since you want them to play nice with you. |
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