WordPress, the company which hosts this blog as well as many thousands of others, has recently sent out data about activity on anthropopper during 2015.It began like this:
“The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it….The busiest day of the year was August 8th, with 1,541 views. The most popular post that day was Marilyn Monroe and Rudolf Steiner.”
Ah yes, Marilyn and Rudi. That has certainly been the most popular post, not only in 2015 but in 2014 as well. Checking the stats for that post, on one day in September 2014 it received 2,001 views. I reckon that since it was first put up in September 15th 2014, it has received more than 16,000 views from around the world.
Clearly the key to blogging success for those of us with recherché subject matter is to find a way to link our topic with another one of much vaster public interest. (Now, how can I follow on from Marilyn and Rudi? Rudi and Princess Di? Rudi and Elvis? There must be some sort of link I can find! Rudolf Steiner and cats doing funny things, perhaps?)
What was truly astonishing, though, was the information about where these visitors came from. They came from 109 countries in all! And there are only around 190 countries in the whole world. Most visitors of course came from the USA, UK and Australia, but there were also surprisingly sizeable visitor numbers from Scandinavia, Europe, the Indian sub-continent, China, Russia, South America, and South Africa.
Now for many bloggers I’ve no doubt that these numbers will seem miniscule by comparison with their own sites; but nevertheless I thought all of this was quite impressive and encouraging for a blog which is dealing with subjects that are decidedly of esoteric rather than mainstream interest. If I had set out to write a book on anthroposophy, I doubt if 1,000 people would have seen it. But in this age of the internet, a blog about aspects of anthroposophy has received over 33,000 views from 20,000 visitors in just eighteen months. Many thanks, dear readers and followers, for your interest so far and very best wishes for 2016!
By the way, here is a link to a blog post by Ha Vinh Tho, who summarises neatly some of the dilemmas facing anthroposophy at the present time. I’m sure that these themes will be featuring on the anthropopper blog as well during 2016.
anthropopper 
(Now, how can I follow on from Marilyn and Rudi? Rudi and Princess Di? Rudi and Elvis? There must be some sort of link I can find! Rudolf Steiner and cats doing funny things, perhaps?)
But dear Jeremy, you’ve already found that link!
It’s Rudolf Steiner and Staudi!
LikeLike
Dear Tom,
I’m glad to see you back from banishment, and top marks for brevity! I must also thank you for your contribution to the Marilyn Monroe and Rudolf Steiner posting, which made the (I have to admit it) rather tenuous connection between Marilyn and Rudi much more interesting.
As for Rudolf Steiner and Staudi, it’s true that in the three months since I posted The New Screwtape, there have been well over 1,000 views – but despite your and my best efforts, there’s still some way to go before Staudi has the same pulling power as Marilyn.
Best wishes for 2016,
Jeremy
LikeLike
Hi Jeremy,
Since you are a “niche blog,” (and not a commercial one, say) then the key statistic for you will be Unique Visitors and Average Visit Duration.
For example, I would estimate that I have visited your site at least 100 times over the last 2 years. But within each of those visits, I would probably average 3 page views. Thus I as one unique viewer, I am responsible for 300 of those page views.
As for the pulling power of MM vs. Staudi, what you say is true, but I would estimate that the vast majority of the page views for MM were “Bouncers,” meaning that MM drew them in to visit the page, but then when they saw this weird stuff about Steiner, they bailed out within 10 seconds of the visit, never to return.
Here is a webpage that gives the basics of interpreting the Google Analytics for your website. (See % Bounce Rate for MM vs. Staudi)
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-google-analytics-to-measure-unique-visi.html
LikeLike
Jeremy, you wrote:
“By the way, here is a link to a blog post by Ha Vinh Tho, who summarises neatly some of the dilemmas facing anthroposophy at the present time. I’m sure that these themes will be featuring on the anthropopper blog as well during 2016.”
I believe that this will be the major consideration for Anthroposophy in 2016. Why does the GAS maintain itself as an archive of “Steiner saids”, when for ninety years the direct followers were motivated to continue with the initiatives of the CC of 1923, and yet, suppressed in that very endeavour by those that succeeded Steiner, and led to the schism of 1935?
In 2012, both Peter Selg and Sergei Prokofieff gave lectures on March 30th at the Goetheanum, in which they both spoke of how the living spirit of Rudolf Steiner was dead, and made into a museum archive of old documents, and misplaced pictures, and restorations still left undone.
Ha Vinh Tho reiterates this observation in 2013, and asks what it will take to create a new impulse for the future.
Maybe that is why Rudolf Steiner gave those lectures, often uncomfortable, in early 1923, after the fire that burned down the Goetheanum. He wanted his followers to have a very clear idea of what was right, and intended, and what was wrong, and needed to be corrected.
Awakening to Community, GA257, is now a global plea in an era in which the modern standard is, “to each his own; to thine own self be true”. But, what is truth in this day and age?
Peter Selg asked a pertintent question in his 2012 volume on the so-called, “Crisis in the General Anthroposophical Society”. He asked his listeners this: “How do we each and all stand before Rudolf Steiner today?”
Good question, don’t you think?
Steve
LikeLike
Tom,
I think that Jeremy was more than implying that when we consider a blog based on, “recherché subject matter”, that it means that he knows that googlers are going to hit on MM and Rudi, and then say,…What?
BTW, this blog has not existed for two years. I grant that the Staudi opus was a great endeavour, and Jeremy showed the courage and temerity to bring it to light, with supporting comments even to the point of discussion.
Jeremy writes in a most congenial style, which invites the reader to explore the subject, and he links to sources very well. I am thankful that he offers, and gives me one of the few and meager opportunities to participate in such arcane matters. Taking on Staudi was wonderful.
As you know, I was banned from WC in late July for nothing more than an arbitrary consideration that I was harassing Staudi, when in reality, it had to do with defending Steiner and Anthroposophy for four years.
May 2016 prove even greater rewards.
Regards,
Steve
LikeLike
Hello Jeremy,
You know, the best and most informative number-crunching analytics for your blog is something you can easily do yourself in a few minutes with no reliance on Google-Ahriman at all — simply count up and log the number of comments received for each posting you have made.
I just did it for you and here is what my analysis reveals. Your blog entries, compiled over the past 2 years show a distinctively quantized binary power series pattern: 40-20-10-5-1, which reduces to the binary 8-4-2-1 ratio. (Other blogs show trinary: 27-9-3-1 and remarkably, Alicia Hamberg’s Ethereal Kiosk blog displays a vivid quaternary pattern: 64-16-4-1).
Let me summarize the results for you here without interpretation, which I leave for you:
==========================
The [40]
Your Staudi trilogy generated 57+21+42 = 120 comments
which averages to 40
——————–
The [20]
The Marilyn Monroe post generated 20 comments and the Franz Kafka post hit 19
which averages to 20
———————–
The [10]
Look at all the postings that generated between 6 and 13 comments, averaging to 10
(Notably: July ’15 “Noah’s Ark” 10 comments, where I mention Staudi for the 1st time
and Aug ‘5 “Oil for Lamps” inspired by Alicia Hamberg, 6 comments and
Oct ’15, your 3rd in angel trilogy, 13 comments)
————————-
The [5]
Look at all the postings that generated 5 or fewer comments, including 3 or 4 that received no comments at all
(Something of note: Compare your Angel Trilogy generating 1+3+13=17 [Average = 5] to your Staudi trilogy averaging 40.)
====================
I will be interested to read your interpretation of these distinctive “quantum levels,” as it were, and how they express certain well-recognized dynamics of human interactions on the Internet, especially on the Steiner Internet, of which I have been a participant for a full 20 years now.
Tom
LikeLike
Dear Tom,
It’s kind of you to help me to interpret the stats on anthropopper but I’m a simple, non-mathematical soul who wouldn’t recognise a quantised binary power series pattern if it came up to me in the street and shook me warmly by the throat. I’m not sure that I draw any firm conclusions from the number of comments that a post attracts, other than that there are certain topics which will tend to pull in certain points of view. A post with lots of comments could be just you, Steve Hale and one or two others itching to knock spots off one another with multiple postings. A post with few, if any comments, could indicate that the quality of my thought stuns most people into silent admiration – or it could just be that most sensible people are not interested in that topic.
Best wishes,
Jeremy
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Jeremy:
I took the opportunity to post to your blog for your benefit, not mine. It was never my intent to, “knock spots off one another with multiple postings”, but rather to comment with due consideration to your essays, which just happened to take on a particular subject that was also yours, but with much less actual intercourse than mine. Personally, I found the Angel Trilogy one that I could comment on from a truly esoteric standpoint.
Thus, I consider the “google surfers”, who make up the statistics that you rave about, far below the ones that you should be acknowledging today, who actually make up the substance of your blog. They are the ones that put this rather obscure material right before you, like the four prepared substances you choose to sprinkle at the Plaw Hatch Farm on the 6th.
The Fourth is you, doing the application 😉
Dialogue is what matters, and not who surfs the internet. Tom duly, and correctly brings down your estimations, but it also elevates what is most important. And that is the discourse here, which is the same as spraying those compounds.
Yet, you seem to consider that very little. Why? Does it just appear as mere arguing, and “knocking spots off the contention”? Well, that would certainly be, and an admirable effort, if I might say.
I still feel it as one of my best efforts this year, even if you’ve gone off and mixed your potion and sprayed your field. Don’t betray yourself, Jeremy. Any honest input you’ve gotten is like the “light root”, which is true.
Regards,
Steve
LikeLike
Hello Steve,
I’m sorry if my semi-humorous reply to Tom Mellett upset you – that was not my intention. I appreciate all comments sent in response to blog postings, and hope that the circle of those who are interested in this rather obscure niche of the blogosphere will continue to expand in 2016.
Best wishes,
Jeremy
LikeLike