Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Site stuff

Join our Innovation Panel to try new features early and help make Mumsnet better.

Some statistics, please?

8 replies

peanutbutterkid · 18/01/2011 04:21

How many messages are posted on MN Talk each week, on average, over last year?

How many different user names post on average, each week, over last year?

OP posts:
BitOfFun · 18/01/2011 04:29

Why do you need to know?

peanutbutterkid · 18/01/2011 12:29

I don't need to know.

Just curious what size the active community might be. As in how many individuals post, assuming something like 10x as many people regularly lurk, and that a large minority will have done at least one name change.
And how many posts each poster produces on average per week.

Does no one else ever wonder such things? Can't believe MN doesn't collect such stats.

OP posts:
NetworkGuy · 20/01/2011 00:06

There was mention on another site that around 250,000 posts are made each week. I think it was a conference where Justine will be giving a presentation. My memory could be wrong, of course, about the number (not about the conference).

No info on how many individuals post, but there was some website which I found (now apparently not giving similar info/closed down) which showed some individuals made over 500 posts a week, while others may post once in a couple of years. It had a 'top 10' league of posters, but of course with some threads being word games, etc, those figures can be significantly skewed to show high numbers of posts without any qualitative analysis.

Even if MN has collected the type of stats you are curious about, they are unique to this site (as no other sites are likely to have 'shared' similar info) and commercially sensitive in terms of comparison with any other site, when attracting advertisers, and I bet there will be NDAs in place so MN could sue any advertiser who let slip details of MN's figures.

Some sites do an analysis but this is the only site I know which allows name changing (of course there may be others, but over 15 years I have used a few dozen sites and this is the first allowing changes, because one might change names to 'back up' an argument.

On here it has far more important use, of course, wrt sensitive issues, but no external monitoring 'spider' can know of there being changes made by an individual so would count each name as a unique poster and it would skew any figures. However, a spider looking at thousands of threads a week is going to be spotted on the MN logs and might automatically be blocked from access unless done in a very distributed way, costing lots of cash and of limited commercial benefit.

Most significant figures might be from the eABC doing an audit but even those figures would be commercially sensitive and not necessarily released by MNHQ if it even does use such an audit.

NetworkGuy · 20/01/2011 00:08

My guess from seeing so many names again and again is that it may be under 2.5% who are 'active' posters, but then again, there are lots of sections I don't visit, so am bound to spot 'regulars' in certain topic areas such as radio, TV, geeky stuff, AIBU, etc.

Now and then there may be a topic such as 'three secrets' which will draw out lots more 'rare' posters (or 'rare' in that topic area) so one may spot names one had not seen for a year or more...

peanutbutterkid · 20/01/2011 13:51

BadmothersClub allows "alters" (Alternative names), up to 4, and you pay for the privilege, iirc.

Number of people who post is only a very rough indicator of lurkers; and lurkers are just as likely to click on the ads as anybody else, so I'm not sure why it's so commercially confidential. But I guess I mustn't forget that MN is a business.

OP posts:
NetworkGuy · 20/01/2011 18:33

Numbers of 'members' vs 'active members' vs 'posters' can be orders of magnitude apart.

While a printed item of media has a circulation figure (which approximates to the number of issues printed, the number of page views is one of the more important figures (alongside the number of repeat visitors, since many ads get displayed in rotation.

So while the number of posters alone is unimportant, and similarly the number of actual posts, the number of lurkers is not itself very important, but the page views made up by posters and lurkers will be important to an advertiser.

The economic/demographic information will give a clue as to which advertisers and products might appeal to viewers/ visitors, but all such data is sensitive because a rival site may adjust its tone, articles and webchat guests to 'poach' visitors.

peanutbutterkid · 20/01/2011 18:49

I shall resist the temptation to ask DH for some jargon to bat back at you (he also works in this area, SEO, page imprints, all that).

OP posts:
NetworkGuy · 20/01/2011 18:53

Oh dear, I consider much of that a pile of bull.... (and in some cases, being done by a bunch of con artists, excluding your DH, of course!)...

Nonetheless, I doubt you'll get any info from MNHQ even if my views are worth the amount you've paid me for them (ie nil :) )

If your DH attends "Digital Content Monetisation" next week he will be able to put forward a question to the MNHQ speaker (either in her session, or privately, but I take no responsibility for a negative response that might be forthcoming!)

New posts on this thread. Refresh page