Journal readership
Josh just sent me the list of LJ users who subscribe to my LJ feed (thanks, Josh!), which I think I hadn't seen in a couple of years, so I looked it over.
Of the nearly 150 people on the list, about half are people I know via the sf world in one way or another (some close friends, some less-close friends and friendly acquaintances, a fair number of people who I don't know but who've submitted stories to us, a couple of people who haven't submitted to us but whose names I know from their publications elsewhere); about a quarter are people I know via Swarthmore, directly or indirectly (though there's some overlap there with the sf group); there are a dozen or so I know through assorted social circles (mostly eventually traceable back to Kam); and then another 30 or so who I don't know at all--either their name is entirely unfamiliar to me, or I can't find a name associated with their LJ account.
Last time I looked at the list, in April 2005, there were about a hundred people on it; 22 of those have dropped off, 67 new people have joined, and 2 (that I know of) have changed their LJ names.
And of course there are people who read my journal the old-fashioned way, without going through LJ.
So here's another open-introductions entry: if I don't know you, regardless of the format in which you read my journal, you're welcome to post a comment (in the entry on my journal page, not in the LJ copy of the entry please) and introduce yourself. You're certainly not required to do so; lurkers are also welcome. But if you want say hi, feel free. Email is also fine.
I've been thinking about journal readership in another context, too. Back in July of 2006, Scalzi posted a list of The Top 50 Personal Blogs in SF/F, as ranked by Technorati. I was pleasantly surprised to see my journal rank at #25, with a Technorati ranking of about 25,000; but knowing the ficklness of Technorati, I took the precaution of posting a comment about why I distrust Technorati's ranking system, a system which appears to be based primarily on the number of other blogs linking to your blog in a particular period.
And it's a good thing I distrust their ranking system, 'cause my journal's ranking went into freefall not long after Scalzi's post. Although my journal is probably more prominent now than it was six months ago (given the link from the Google blog sidebar), its Technorati ranking has been hovering between about 100,000 and 150,000 for the past month or two. And that's despite still getting a presumably-significant boost in ranking from spam blogs and from blogroll sidebars. I figured that part of the problem was that half the time when I post a new entry these days, Technorati's ping receiver times out, so I'm guessing that a lot of people's entries just aren't showing up on Technorati at all these days. However, as Scalzi's December 2006 updated list shows, any issues with Technorati pings sure aren't hurting the Technorati ratings of the people who are still on his list.
I suppose I could shoulder some of the responsibility for falling off Scalzi's list myself, seeing as how I haven't been posting much that's especially linkworthy, and seeing as how I haven't been participating much in online discussions.
But I think instead I'll stick with my initial reaction: "I didn't want to be on your dumb ol' list anyway, you mean Scalzi person! I'm going to take my blog and go home!"
