Just over a week ago, my son put Google Analytics onto JWN, so i now have a week’s worth of their great data on who YOU, the readers, are.
I am thrilled that during the past week, readers from 107 countries (1,281 cities) visited JWN. I love the mapping gadget. I could travel from the Cape to Cairo through countries where JWN has readers. Can’t quite make it right down the Pan-American Highway through central America… Laos and Myanmar are the only standouts in East Asia. We had visitors from all the states of the US except North Dakota, with California very evidently leading the pack.
I’ve been very interested, ever since I first started writing JWN, in developing a global readership. (Remember back when I tried to use the non-English options for the date-stamps here?) It turns out that 42% of the visits this past week came from non-US-based readers. Well, I know there are some US-citizen readers who visit us from outside the US, and some non-US readers who visit from inside the US, so maybe those two categories more or less balance each other? The top five locations among non-European-heritage locales are India, Egypt, Pakistan, China, and South Africa, all bunched together with each having around 0.6% of the total visitorship.
So it’s still not a totally global forum here. But I’m really delighted to find how international it is.
I realize that over the past few months, while I’ve been working on this latest book of mine and doing a few other things, I haven’t been as systematic or intentional– okay, some might say “obsessive”– as I have been at various earlier stages of publishing the blog. I was starting to feel a bit burned out with it, or feel it wasn’t achieving very much, or whatever. I even thought of closing it gracefully down. (Or ungracefully. Bam! Just like that!)
But seeing the Google Analytics maps has been a real blast. And I’ve even started to think about various ideas for ways I could make JWN more effective. I think it will always be fairly idiosyncratic, or as the Lebanese say, “mazaji.” But there are probably things I could do either with the layout or with a better organization of the content, or by trying to be a bit more intentional in planning the content, that would make it more interesting for more readers.
What do any of you think? Would you like more shorter posts? (Please don’t ask for photos.) What other ideas do you have? What do you like about JWN? What might make it more interesting or useful for you? What would make it so much more interesting that you could recommend it to more of your friends?
Actually, instead of sitting here enjoying looking at the maps and thinking about the future of the blog, what I should be doing is finishing the revisions on the book manuscript. I really do need to get it done within the next two or three days….
If you put your ideas here in the form of a comment, could you just tell me your home-country as well when you do so? Thanks!
9 thoughts on “Calling JWN’s readers from around the world!”
Comments are closed.
Helena Cobban:
No, don’t think of closing down. I’m new to your site, and find it excellent. I already recommended it today to readers of World Views by Edward Gomez, which is hosted at http://www.sfgate.com.
Please don’t ever close JWN down or even think about it. You see the BIG picture better than anyone else and tie things together so readers are able to understand how different events from Pakistan to Lebanon relate.That can ONLY be done by a person who has the knowledge and understanding that you do.
Shorter posts wouldn’t be a good idea IMO. When you make longer posts, it helps me to better understand the different factors at play and how they interact with each other. Other writers can’t do that because they just don’t have the background.It’s the best thing about JWN.
The posts by China Hand on Pakistan were fascinating to read.Those kind of links help a great deal.
I’ve learned bunches & bunches.
You don’t really need to change anything.
I really hate to hear you don’t think JWN hasn’t been “achieving very much, or whatever.”
THAT AIN’T TRUE…geez
I live in the USA.
I recently discovered your blog, and it is very good . Keep up the good work – do not close it down!
Ervin from Kosovo
Hi Helena! I recently discovered your site and already I have referenced a couple of your posts here, here and here.
Media Lens is a good venue to publicize your ideas. Perhaps you might consider posting there as well, like some other bloggers do, even it it’s just a link to your posts here.
To bring the matter to the group is to “problematise” it, in the way of Paulo Freire, the prophet of “intentionality”. I know that the late Freire is said to have influenced the liberation theologists. I don’t know if the echo of Freire here is conscious or deliberate, but whether it is or not I happen to be convinced that the Freirean way is indeed the only sure way to go.
If the task of life is to learn, and if the only learning that is of use is social learning, with the intentionality of changing the world and defeating the oppression that is all around, then the Freirean method – the dialogical method – is the right one.
The measure of worth, in that case, is whether one has stimulated a dialogue, or not, and this would not be shown by the number of views of a site. Nor would the number of comments be a fair measure, although it might be taken as an indicator.
I’m not sure if the Internet is fading. The best dialogue I have had on the Internet was the total free-for-all on the unmoderated iraqwar.ru site, from just before the Iraq war (with the “Ramzaj” reports) and for quite a few months into the war. That is my taste. It was honest. The commenters were the main attraction, and there was no place to hide. The warmongers came, and they were seriously worsted on that site. There is nothing like that any more.
In my own operations I have gone back to “listserv” e-mail dialogues for the time being, although still hybridised with some blog-cum-wiki mashing. I can’t attract comments the way JWN does. This site is a major achievement.
I have had the experience of being poached or head hunted for dead-tree media, on the strength of Internet stuff that I have done, but the dead-tree gig was less than a total success. The bleeding edge is here, in cyberspace. There will be ups and downs but there is no going back. It’s worth keeping JWN alive for that reason alone.
Whether I live up to this I can’t say, but I like to think I am not pursuing correctness, just opening stuff up. I think that therein lies the problematique of JWN, too. There is a contradiction between a didactic strain that is hard to keep out, and a dialogic strain which is sometimes hard to sustain, and at other times hard to restrain (when panic sets in!).
If I can have one wish, it is that JWN refrains from seeking any kind of US common denominator (neither lowest nor middle-of-the-road). That’s too low a setting of the bar. Rather keep aiming at world culture as the benchmark, especially now that it is clear that in terms of its readership this is a world site and not a parochial US one. Presume that we are educated.
JWN is one of the best. It’s a treasure. All things must surely pass, but there is no reason yet for this one to pass. I don’t think so.
Helena:
I come to this site to read in depth opinion pieces from you and your readers. Unlike most American commentators, you are intimately connected to the world outside the US, especially the Middle East, and so have a different perspective to offer than is usually available (mostly nonsense masquerading as conventional wisdom). The readers contributions are especially valuable, and are as important to the site as your own writings. Shorter posts are a no go, as far as I am concerned, There are enough sound bites flying around, who needs more? Keep it the same. I suggest you invite guest contributers, including some of the more thoughtful readers. But all in all it has been a successful and enriching blog. Keep it going.
Thanks for sticking with it. Consider contributing authors.
I think you have placed the foundation for something very important on the internet. Intelligent, informed, critical analysis of world news reporting. Your website’s name alone is reason enough to keep this operation running!
Over the years it may at times have been frustrating for you to keep up the work — especially considering what the world has witnessed the last few years, but no doubt you have found more to celebrate in this inspired labor. Your readers have certainly found more to celebrate in all your success, and we applaud all your effort.
I agree with the idea of including more contributing authors, since it would relieve you of bearing much of the burden to post each day. And speaking as an American reader, I agree about the need to keep a global focus, constantly critiquing the narrow output of the American media/government “spin machine.”
For your American readers, JWN is one of the best sources cutting through the media/government created bubble which increasingly isolates our country from the rest of the world … an isolation that comes at great political risk to the rest of the world.
How easy would it be for you to find JWN correspondents from around the world who could post regularly (semi-weekly?) on significant developments/trends/breakthroughs in the peace and justice movement? Or as a second-best substitute, it would serve to have American correspondents who have the interest and language skills to keep tabs on the best international reporting available on the internet.
If you are encountering a fatigue factor, then these options would allow you some break time. Perhaps you could limit yourself to commentary on all the JWN reports which are filed week-to-week, plus your regular insightful analysis of each week’s happenings.
You are often apologetic to your readers if you miss posting 5-6 days in a row, but there is hardly a need for apology. We are amazed at what you have been able to accomplish, and highly appreciative!
Keep up the great work!!
Just wanted to chime in to let you know how much I appreciate your blog. It provides great insight, good details and covers a wide range of places and events. Keep up the good work!