What's Popular, and Why

Maybe

One aspect of posting to the web is that you can get statistics on what stuff people like. Here's some light analysis of what's popular here at New Savanna and what photos are popular at my Flickr site.

Posts on New Savanna

[Counts as of 7 AM Tuesday 26 April 2011.]

The most popular post on this blog – by far – is "Sex, Power, and Purity in Kawajiri's Ninja Scroll". It was posted on 18 September 2010 and has 3,476 pageviews.. I wouldn't rate it as one of my best posts, much less THE best one. So why's it have more that twice as many views as the second most popular post? That seems obvious enough. Ninja Scroll is a very popular anime title and — the post is about sex in the film. "Naked Flickr Sex Erotic Bodies" is second, with 1,464 pageviews; it was posted on 16 November 2010. Again, not in my list of top 50 favorites, but it has its points. I assume its popularity is a function of its subject, sexy photos. Alas, no photos in the post itself.

The third most popular post is something of a surprise: "Secrets of Pink Elephant Revealed", posted on 25 October 2010 and having 1419 pageviews. It mostly analyzes and describes what happens in the "Pink Elephants on Parade" segment of Dumbo. I like that post a lot, though I don't know whether I'd put it among my very best. However much I'd like to think that the post's popularity is a function of how well I did the analysis, I suspect that much of the popularity is a function of the popularity of the segment itself. I wasn't aware of its popularity, but that popularity pleases me a great deal. It's a fine piece of film-making.

In fourth place we have "Sakaki Rides a Dolphin", another post about animation, this one being from a Japanese anime title of fairly recent vintage: Azumanga Daioh. It was posted on 19 April 2010 and has 733 hits to date. I like this post as well; I think there's a bit of analysis in there that's just splendid. But, again, I can't claim the all the hits for myself; Azumanga Daioh is quite popular.

The fifth-place post has nothing to do either with sex or with cartoons: "Higher Ed and the Rise of the Citizen Researcher", with 603 hits. It was posted on 16 August 2010. That post is about how the web is making it easier for ordinary folks to engage in research projects of various kinds, so it's about the social and cultural impact of digital tech, always a popular subject on the web.

Let's skip over 6th place, about two episodes in Fantasia, and 7th place, about sex in two novels, to number 8, which was posted on 26 March 2011, the only one in the top 10 to have been published this year. That post is "The Hottest Man in Siam", again, an analytic and descriptive effort I'm quite fond of. But I'm just a little surprised that it's gotten so much action, 534 pageviews, so quickly. I suspect I was helped by a recent story in The New York Times about a Woody Woodpecker cartoon, which also mentioned The Greatest Man in Siam, the cartoon I discussed in the post. The 9th and 10th posts are both about Fantasia; one asserts it's a masterpiece, the other explains why I like The Nutcracker Suite episode.

Now, a quick look back over the numbers: 1) 3476, 2) 1464, 3) 1419, 4) 733, and 5) 603. The most popular has more than twice as many views as the second, which is very close to the third. The third is roughly double the fourth, which is a sixth greater than the fifth. While the 10th trails the 5th by over 100 views (488 to 603) the gaps do seem to be closing up once we get out of the top four.

[August 22, 2013: I've updated the above part of the post HERE.]

Photos on Flickr

I've been posting to Flickr for several years (since Nov of 2006) and, as of right now, 7 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday morning 26 April, I've got 6,505 photos there with 228,759 views. I get anywhere between, say, 50 and 700 views a day, mostly in the 100 - 200 range. Just how many people that is, I don't know. 50 views could be 50 people taking one look each, or one person looking at 50 photos.

By far my most popular photos are my graffiti photos. That's because there are lots of graffiti writers and aficionados interested in graffiti. For the most part they don't care about the quality of the photos; they care about the graffiti itself and, in particular, the fame of the writer (which is loosely related to the quality of the graffiti).

Here's my most popular photo to date, with 3,526 views:

As graffiti, it's nothing special. As a photo, it does its job, depicting a bit of nothing special graffiti. So why's it at the top of my hit parade? Because it's a memorial to a dead person (notice the dates at the bottom of the N & the G) and I titled it "RIP Angie.jpg." I figure it's been picked up by people searching on "RIP" or perhaps "Angie" or perhaps the combination.

Here's my second most viewed photo, with 2256 views:

Much better graffiti, and by a writer with an international reputation, EWOK. The photo does its job. I figure it gets most of its views on EWOK's fame. But I've got other photos of EWOK's work, and photos of other writers as well known as EWOK, if not even better known. So maybe this one's gotten a little boost from the title I gave it: "Mystic Eye (Camera)."

Here's #3, with 1201 views:

What's up with that? Graffiti, yes, but pretty poor stuff. The photo's nice enough, but nothing more than a document of the graffiti. Look in the upper right quandrant; you can see the traces of an old Bull Durham ad. I find that fascinting, especially given the context — this wall faces an old rail-freight station where the ad would have been seen by 100s of workers back in the day. The photo's title: "Bull Durham, enhanced." I figure the photo attracted folks searching on "Bull Durham".

4: 885 views:

Not much on the graffiti front, but the photo's got some nice touches. Title: "mongo.jpg." Could it be that someone's searching on "mongo"?

5:  652 views, Title: "angry white letters.jpg":

Why over 600 views? Maybe it's in the short description I gave it: "Somer did the throwie on the left." If you google "Somer" you'll get some hits. That's the best I can do toward explaining why that photo's #5 on my hit parade.

We've got a tie for 6 & 7. Yesterday "meres - magenta twist.jpg" had 634 hits, two behind "Gaser." It picked up 2 hits since then. That, I assume, is why Flickr puts it ahead of "Gaser" in the tie.

6: 636 hits, title: "meres - magenta twist.jpg". Meres is well known.

7: 636 hits, title: "Gaser." Gaser's well-known, but this isn't a masterpiece, or "piece" as it's called:

8: 630 hits, title: "corte & co sausage.jpg".

So-so photo, so-so subject. I took it simply to document that spot, for my own purposes. Subsequently a lawyer spotted it and realized it pertained to a case he had. It ended up as evidence in a civil suit about damages to the empty lot to the left of the building. Maybe that got the photo a few views. And maybe some locals are nostalgic about the old sausage factory.

9: 615 hits, title: "Somer on the door.jpg". Somer again:

10: 608 hits, title: "another tek, made in the shade.jpg". TekNYC's well known:

Best photo of the lot, by far.