I think I can officially say that the slashdot effect is over. My daily visitors, while still quite higher than they were, have evened off. My feed subscribers have actually dropped below what they were before hand. They had been hovering about 17-20. They peaked at 63 the day of the slashdotting and have now dropped down below and are hovering at 14-17.
I do have my theory as to why these dropped off so significantly. A large portion of the readers were in Google Desktop and as anyone with google desktop will attest, feedburner feeds and google desktop just don’t agree. I’ve watched the feeds subscribed in feedburner with desktop drop from over 20 to down around 6 over the last few days. I find it interesting that a desktop app like that wouldn’t support an xml feed like the feedburner feeds. That’s the official word from the google desktop support team by the way.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t all rss feeds xml? atom feeds too? Or at least variations of xml such that any good xml reader worth it’s salt should read them? If that’s the case, which I think it is, then why would the desktop support team tell me it doesn’t support xml pages when I know damn well that it supports rss feeds?
Anywho, I’m ranting. The point was to say that while a slashdotting is great for short-term traffic numbers, unless you follow that up with similar original, above-par material, the effects will wane. Short and simple.
Technorati Tags: slashdot, slashdot effect, slashdotting, feedreader, feedburner, google, google desktop, rss, atom
About Shane Ede
Yeah and you know whats really funny? I visited your site last night and you only had 11 subscribers. Now you’re back up to 19. Apparently you should post more often because you gain subscribers when you do. Thats my best guess anyways.
I have no idea what you are writing about, edeguy. But then, I was an English major in college back in the dark ages when computer labs were all new and shiny and no one knew how to use them. You know, before Quale invented the internet. (I seriously dated myself there. Don’t look too close or you’ll see my gray hair and crows feet.)
Anyway, I like you – and I read most every day. That has to help the stats a bit?
Actually wasn’t it Al Gore that claimed he invented the internet?