i realize that blogging about blogging may well be considered either meta-blogging or schizophrenia or something, but it’s striking to me how dead the OVN blog is. perhaps it’s simply because it’s relatively new, and perhaps the bulk readership of the paper is older (which makes sense since Ojai, on average, is older) and less blog-savvy.
so perhaps we’ll see some change over time. meanwhile, here are some current statistics:
- there are currently 14 different topics on the OVN’s blog, and they’re all timely and relevant.
- between all 14 topics there are only 20 comments made, with 7 of the topics receiving 0 comments. (that’s 50%)
- of the 20 comments made, 5 of them were made by me. i am officially 25% of their total blog traffic.
- that amounts to almost 1.5 comments per topic.
this is not in the spirit of ridicule or head-shaking-tongue-clicking. and i’m not sure how cool it is to post on one blog about another in the same community. in fact, i’m kind of thinking some of us should start popping on over there and commenting once in a while. they’re covering topics we dont here, and from slightly different perspectives, so i dont see it as redundant.
but rock on, Ojai Post. we’re still the life of the party, bloggily-speaking.
How Dead is the OVN Blog?
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I tried to get on the OVN blog once but failed. I assumed that I had to pay a subscripton fee. Is that true?
not at all, Dennis. in fact, i’ve linked right to it in my first paragraph above.
if you go to the OVN’s website (which was just redesigned and looks a little better than it has in the past), you can get to the blog by clicking directly beneath the two preview pics of this week’s paper. it says “Ojai’s blogspot” and points to the right, where there are four links to choose from.
i should clarify, i think, that the statistics in my original post come from the “new posts” section of the blog. however, a cursory review of some of the other sections reveals much the same trend.
I dunno, I think there’s just a slightly different less interactive audience is all.
Plus, they post a very different sort of blog – music and food a lot of the time…both of which aren’t really discussion generators. I think it’s kind of unfair to bash them or even try to compare them especially when using something as arbitrary as ‘comments’ for the parameter.
this is off the front page now, but just in case anyone checks in:
i think Linda’s right that it’s a different kind of blog. i didnt mean to be bashing them, although perhaps the criticism would be “why are they blogging about non-discussion-starters?”
however, i think they DO have some good discussion starters (war, spanking, mining trucks, etc) that aren’t getting any attention. like i said in my original post, perhaps it’ll just take some time to build up an interactive audience.