2009 Annual Report: The Wild Wild East Dailies

Well howdy there all. Don't time fly? It seems just a year ago we did our first annual report and now it's time for a new one, and have we got news to report! We're much bigger now, and much more well read as well. Touche - and so without further adieu, I present to you, The Wild Wild East Dailies (WWED) 2009 Annual Report. With plenty of charts and graphs - just like most annual reports.


Overview:





So there you have it. On the left, 2008, and on the right, 2009. From a total of 20,000 views last year to a total of 50,000 in year two, or 30,00 views for the year - that's a 50% growth rate. Not bad. That big spike you see in 2008 was the election and the influence of a lot of political satire I wrote in support of it. But once Obama was elected and Palin banished to talk show fame, things became a lot more boring and then of course, there was that recession, or depression. It's pretty obvious on these charts. Now we didn't make my projected 36,000 for year two but what we have done is almost doubled the daily hit rate and leveled off at around 100 page views per day. And I like that.

Last year Technorati ranked our site at 520,000 which didn't look that hot but did place us in the top .5% of blogs worldwide. This year, I'm more than happy to report that our Technorati ranking has shot up to 40,000 out of over 120 million blogs worldwide. And I have no idea what percentage that is, but I know it's good. The other important thing to realize about Technorati rankings is that they count the number of times that other blogs link to yours and that gives you what they call an "Authority" ranking. WWED's Authority has risen from 17 to 123. Wow. Now we're an authority. What ever is the world coming to? Scary, huh?


Where you are from:

Since last year, and a move from Vietnam to Germany, with stops in France and Africa on the way here, the United states has dropped from 70% readership to around 50% and Germany taking over the number 2 spot from Vietnam last year. Makes sense doesn't it? The stats you see here are just a weekly ranking, but I think they're pretty representative of what normally goes on around here.Gotta love the French down there at the bottom.

	265	53.00%	United States
	110	22.00%	Germany
	27	5.40%	Vietnam
	23	4.60%	United Kingdom
	16	3.20%	Australia
	8	1.60%	Canada
	5	1.00%	Philippines
	5	1.00%	Korea, Republic Of
	4	0.80%	Singapore
	4	0.80%	Netherlands
	3	0.60%	New Zealand
	3	0.60%
	3	0.60%	Brazil
	3	0.60%	India
	2	0.40%	Japan
	2	0.40%	Greece
	2	0.40%	Finland
	2	0.40%	Turkey
	2	0.40%	Malaysia
	2	0.40%	Saudi Arabia
	2	0.40%	Belgium
	2	0.40%	Argentina
	1	0.20%	Denmark
	1	0.20%	Czech Republic
	1	0.20%	Thailand
	1	0.20%	Indonesia
	1	0.20%	France

In terms of real concentration, the Northeast US is the heaviest with New York city and state carrying the bulk but LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas and Chicago all carry respectable weights.

What do you like:

Here's the report again from 2008: Suffice to say that the greatest number of entries to the site come from the main page, but many others come in looking for a particular item. Not surprisingly, anything involving Obama scored well but I have to tell you - Sarah Palin was a more than respectable second - in fact her lunacy sparked the biggest post of the year when she entered the race and she scored a healthy #5 with Kim Jong Il as her WWED running mate. Political satire carried 4 spots out of the top 10.

#1. 08/August/Obama Splits Ticket - Boots Biden! (1,272)

#2. 08/July/Paris In The 30s - Saigon Today (680)

#3. 08/June/June 22 - Happy Birthday Todd Rundgren (487)

#4. 08/April/American Foreign Policy Since WWII (411)

#5. 08/September/Kim Jong Il, Ill After Threats by Palin (381)

#6. 08/July/Obama Brandishes a Bud For The Bubbas! (365)

#7. 08/May/Buddhist Funeral Prayer (346)

#8. 09/January/Chúc Mừng Năm Mới or Happy New Year in Vietnamese (336)

#9. 08/November/BarCampSaigon - A truly impressive start (301)

#10. 08/July/Belgian Prime Minister Quits Over Budweiser Purchase! (281)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, let's see how things stack up for 2009. The big happiness' for me are #2 and #9. The Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz also makes a respectable entry into the top 10 with two entries.


#1. 08/August/Obama Splits Ticket - Boots Biden! (1,306)
Obama keeps his #1 position in 2009 but only grows by 30 views or so. Old news.

#2. 08/May/Buddhist Funeral Prayer (1240)
Jumping from #7 to #2 this makes me happy and will be our #1 post shortly. Every week it's our most keyword searched item. Go Buddha!

#3. 09/January/Chúc Mừng Năm Mới or Happy New Year in Vietnamese (787)
Jumping from #8 to #3 it seems people are always interested in how the Vietnamese say Happy New Year.

#4. 09/April/Is North Korea a Nuclear Threat? - The Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz IV (743)
Making its debut at #4 the Vietnamese Nuclear Physics quiz is most certainly indebted to our wonderful scientists. Check them out, I'm sure you'll understand why they are so popular.

#5. 08/July/Paris In The 30s - Saigon Today (728)
Hanging tough at #5, this post is just a throwback to another time and everyone seems to like that.

#6. 09/February/What's Wrong With The Vietnamese Advertising Association (709)
This one looks like a surprise new entry until you consider the question. Apparently a lot of people would like the answer. And this post gathers more hits than the VAA website, because well, they don't have one. When you search the term on Google, you get this post in the #1 spot. Sad. For them.

#7. 09/September/Is Publicis Group a Dead Brand?(682)
Invoking a Seth Godin post, this story takes a visit to Publicis headquarters on Avenue des Champs Elysées in Paris and doesn't find them doing much of a 360 degree job on their branding - but that's an Ogilvy concept isn't it?

#8. 08/June/June 22 - Happy Birthday Todd Rundgren (581)
Holding its own at #8 this post on Todd Rundgren's birthday makes you wonder who the hell Todd Rundgren is, doesn't it? Read it and find out. Otherwise he's just a guy with the same birthday as mine.

#9. 09/January/Cold Fusion By Hot Sex Injection: The Vietnamese Nuclear Physics Quiz II (540)
C'mon, I get SEO points for the headline don't I? Otherwise I think the photos in this series keep the boys coming, and cuming back.

#10. 08/September/Kim Jong Il, Ill After Threats by Palin (528)
And it's always good to see that our friends Kim Jong Il and Sarah Palin haven't lost their steam yet. Dropping from #5 to #10, I think we can guarantee they'll be gone next year.

2009 Summary

Once again we end our top ten with another political satire piece that just reinforces again that there's always a market in funny. In fact four of our Top 10 are satire. Now some people still love some of the more artful stuff I do, and the business things, but one should never overlook that crass and sophomoric pretty much sell. This year the National Enquirer was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the Huffington Post is working hard to make sure they never get one. I think the Wild Wild East Dailies still has a pretty good shot.

Who loves me baby:

Our final category today involves quality - the quality of readers that come, come back and spend real quality time. In our first chart we look at "Return Visitors" again. These are people who visit regularly. And look at that - the same as last year we hover at around 10% - but that's 10% of a pie that's 50% larger than it was last year, so good growth, even if it doesn't look it from the chart. Our feed subscribers are up to 200 from 70 and we like that. If you haven't subscribed yet, I urge you to do so. According to stats from both Google Analytics and Statcounter, if 10% of the crowd are return readers based on unique visitors (not just page impressions) of 20,000 that's 2000 regulars - up from last years 1600.

2008 - The second Chart involves "Visit Length". That's how much time how many people spend here. From 76% of the people running away in less than 5 seconds in 2008, we're down to only 38%. And the news gets better - 27% now stay for up to 30 seconds and 10% for up to five minutes. Another 2% for up to 20 minutes and that big block of yellow at 20%? They stay for more than an hour - and boy does that make me feel good. Those people are listening to WWED Radio and I think that's cool. Recently our podcast was picked up by a site called "What Do You Want From Them?" and that made us very happy. Thanks Anna! So all in all, a wonderful year for readers. More people come, more people stay longer and more come back. I call that success by all measures.


Show me the money:

So let's talk money. Google Adsense has now clocked in at a total of $9.12, up from $4.86 last year but affiliate programs kicked in $150 with one site paying that amount for a two word link in a post called Christmas in Vietnam. But the big money maker for the year was a post I did called "Will Work For Todd". That effort, to raise money to see Todd Rundgren in Amsterdam netted a total of $300, pre-show, $100 while I was on the road, and $200 when I returned home for a total of $600. Thank you all so much. You know who you are. Aside from that, $25 came in one day as a surprise donation and another $7 the other day as another surprise. So that brings our current total to around $800. You can't live on that, but it has finally launched the WWED into the black.

Should I ever get around to publishing the book maybe I can start to look at a steady income from this whole exercise. Should you be feeling particularly generous or just thankful for all our work and wonderful statistics please click the 'donate' button in the sidebar and throw this blog a bone. We always appreciate it and will make sure to add you to the WWED Monthly, our monthly newsletter to subscribers of WWED.

This years thanks got to Yen, Joyce, Sylvia, Cheryl, Katy, Richard, Nels, Sis Nancy, Eduardo, Freya, MeeHyun, Anna. Without you all, and a few other thousand people, the Wild Wild East Dailies wouldn't be doing as well as it is. Here's to 2010 - wherever I might be. Thank you all.

For more on blogs, blogging and bloggers, check here:

Advertising People & Blogs - The Travis Diaries VI
How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World
Throw That Blog a Bone!
If Blogs Are Free Are They Worthless?
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If You Like the Blog, Read the Book
2008 Annual Report - The Wild Wild East Dailies
Blog Redesign WWED
BarCamp Saigon 2008
Attraction vs. Conversion - How to Power Your Blog
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market?