The book is nearing completion–I’ve prepared the index of blogs (the only index, but it is 13 pages) and done a second pass checking the layout, etc.
Next comes the cover, another doublecheck, final PDF.
Probably some time next week: Upload, make it available for sale…and then take the earlier Liblog Landscape off the market.
Just one item along the way
There are a few miscellaneous facts about the book that won’t appear in the book itself or in Chapter 1 (the portion of the book that will never appear in Cites & Insights, even if the other 10 chapters might eventually appear, one at a time, sort of like a serial novel except nonfiction).
This one does appear in the book, although it doesn’t jump out at you. I’m giving you the item without the actual blog that’s involved…
- As in the earlier books, I use quintiles to show most metrics–that is, the top 20% (by whatever metric is under consideration), the second 20%, and s0 on.
- There are three key metrics in addition to many other metrics, and four quarter-long testing periods (March 1-May 31, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010). The key metrics: Frequency (number of posts), Average post length, Conversational intensity (average comments per post).
- If blogs were random in where metrics fell, there would be one chance in 125 of a given blog being in the same quintile for all three metrics (this is easy: one over five to the third power), and one chance in 625 of a given blog being in the same quintile for a given metric for all four years (one over five to the fourth power).
- The odds of a given blog being in the first quintile for all three metrics in all four years would appear to be one in 78,125.
- But of course blogs aren’t random, particularly in year-to-year characteristics, so the odds are better, but still not particularly high.
- One–and only one–blog is in the top quintile for all three key metrics for all four years. It’s probably not one that would immediately spring to mind for most of you.
- The only thing I’ll say here is that it’s not a U.S. blog–which actually narrows things down quite a bit, since 880 of the 1,216 blogs for which I had country of blogger are from the U.S.. You’ll find it in the book, of course.
