…but perhaps not very often.
As previously hinted, I am (as a certified glutton for punishment) doing another round of liblog analysis. In fact, I have about 74 blogs left to do the raw metrics for (I say “about” because I do check some blogrolls–and now exclude any blog that’s no longer available at all). That’s about 15% of the total, so I’m almost there…
Of course, the raw metrics are only part of the work. Then comes all the analysis, writing it up and determining how to publish it or make it available. (The tentative title for one version of the book, if that’s how I do it, appears as the title of this post, in honor of the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s discoveries.) I won’t even suggest when this all might come out–although if I did a “just the blogs, none of the analysis” version, it could probably be out in October.
So how often do they post?
Just for fun, I’m tracking just how much of an “overload” I get from following way too many liblogs (and a handful of non-liblog blogs) in Bloglines. I read posts once or twice a day; when I do, for the next month or so, I’m noting the number of feeds with new posts and the number of new posts in a spreadsheet.
Let’s make it a guessing game (no prizes other than a notice here):
Given that:
- I subscribe to 499500 501 blog feeds, of which 461462 463 are liblogs (defined broadly, including some open access and museum blogs) Note 9/21: In the process of completing the scan, I added one liblog–but it won’t change the overall frequency significantly, I don’t believe. Note 9/24: One more liblog added, but only 10 posts over 3 months, so no big deal.
- Of the “firehose” blogs, I subscribe to Open Access News but not ResourceShelf or Slaw or, as far as I know, any of the other megablogs–and my 38 “other” blogs don’t include any of the high-frequency magazine-blogs/newsletter-blogs like boingboing, Huffington or whatever. (Well, I do subscribe to Whatever, John Scalzi’s blog, but that’s not a high-frequency blog.)
Then, for the period from September 16 through (say) October 15, what will be the average number of new posts per day?
I know, I know: This is potentially a quantum-physics-style question, as a few of you could manipulate the results by blogging where you now use Twitter or Friendfeed–but I think most all of us are too lazy to do that.
What’s your guesstimate?
[Hint: It’s within an order of magnitude of 100–that is, more than 10 posts a day and fewer than 1,000.]
Note: You can, in fact, see exactly which blogs I’m subscribed to–there’s a link over in the right margin.
98.