PlexNex is Reaching New Audiences
Recent stats analyses here at PlexNex indicates that traffic is up significantly. The Plex has been averaging over 100 unique visits per day for a few weeks. You'll say that's not much, but I think it is significant for a blog with such a narrow niche and such a self-involved editorial mojo. PlexNex is way too technical and smart-ass for a large audience; I stopped caring about that almost immediately after launching last Christmas.
My technorati rank is in the 200,000nds now after hovering in the 160,000 range while ODF gained ascent from Massachusetts business this year. The drop I attribute to the fact that IBM's Bob Sutor stopped linking here in September at the time our (OpenDocument Foundation's) negotiations with IBM on the ODF Plugin for MS Office scuttled. Bob, for whom I have a lot of personal & professional respect, gets a lot of hits on his blog(s) because he's good and because he's regular and because IBM is a big company (with lots of people for whom Bob's valuable synthesis of the standards world is relevant). Bob's links boosted my rank because that's how the technoarti ranking system works: a link is valued by its weight, as it should be. I'm thankful to Bob for the attention while it lasted and I'm thankful also to IBM's Rob Weir, who is still looking in. Rob's own contributions to the ODF debate are significant on his An Antic Disposition blog.
So, viewing my stats I can triangulate a few guesses about what's reaching people. But first, here are some novel take-aways...
Most Popular Post
What do you know? Sex sells, and 'masturbation' could be one of the most searched for terms in the English language, by my analysis of link sources -- 100% coming from Google (from many different countries).
This post was originally intended as a post April-Fools bust on Nick Carr (his blog, Rough Type, I admire), whose comment still makes me laugh out loud...
My Personal Favorite Post
This, during the early days of the Massachussets ITD ODF Pilot Project after Peter Quinn resigned, was a comparison of Peter Quinn & his boss The Governor, Mitt Romney, to Jackie Robinson & Branch Rickie of the Brooklyn Dodgers. There is some poetry in there, if not an overweening comparison. But it was Deval Patrick's victory in the Massachusetts Gubernatorial race last week which put this post back in my thoughts.
Perhaps it originally missed -- perhaps due to timing (traffic low), or perhaps the point is too far-fetched -- but I personally believe there is a close thread between the gradual and grudging acceptance of ODF and the grudging acceptance in the United States of the 1940's & 50's of racial integration. Please read it and let me know what you think. Even if you are not American -- perhaps especially if you are not American. It's my social extension of Rogers | Moore | Christensen theories of the adoption of innovation.
Recent Post Getting the Most Attention
"Pretending Interoperability (PG version)"
This post I did not think that much of while I was writing it. Perhaps because the thinking behind it issues from our long series of conversations at the OpenDocument Foundation and I owe much of the logic to my close & valued colleagues there. However, in the timely context of the Novell-Microsoft deal (the PG verson of the post -- running Nov 11th -- was an exact but cleaned-up version of the original, which ran on Oct 31st and preceded the SCOvell deal by a few days) the post seems to have shed new light for many people on what Microsoft is trying to achieve through its file format work at ECMA and through its particular approach to its new format, MOOX.
It also sheds light on the irony of Sun and Novell each doing a deal with Microsoft that provides critical help in getting Microsoft's ECMA file format approved at ISO next year, which will obliterate their own office suite's (OpenOffice.org's) chances in the market-place. Novell joins Sun here in a few strokes of extremely self-defeating behavior.
This post was picked up in a comment to Joe Wilcox's piece, "Interoperability: Is Microsoft All Talk?" on Microsoft-Watch and hits continue to escalate.
The New Gestault of the Plex
Several factors may explain the new traffic patterns on the Plex...
(1) My talk profile at XML 2006 went up a few weeks ago. This conference is a big deal and I'll be speaking about the Foundation's ODF Plugin for MS Office, about which many people are curious;
(2) Perhaps ODF has reached a new phase of relevance to people outside the immediate standards world;
(3) The Microsoft-Novell deal has put a panic on the ODF community, and people are looking for clues with renewed vigor; or
(4) I added Hugh's gapingvoid.com cartoons to the Nav last weekend.
Or it could be the foul language and the liberal view of sex, but it's probably nothing personal.
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