J G STEVENSON: BLOG REPORT #1

J G S :-)

Hello, that's me in a random selfie on a Cityrail train.

In lieu of a regular round of NRL, this Sunday's blog is a summary and review of the new format I created for my Blog.

The new format for my Blog has now been in existence for 6 weeks and I have really enjoyed keeping up with it and covering items that are both important and of interest to me.

What is interesting is the popularity of particular blogs and where the viewers are coming from. No doubt that I have friends around the globe and now viewers from countries that baffle me as to how they found my blog.

I post my blog notices on Twitter and Facebook and recently through Google+ and that's it.

Anyhow I thought I would share my stats with you today and invite you to cheer on your countries rank in the blogs viewership.

Naturally, I am from Sydney and so when the blog began there was a huge majority of viewers from Australia. When I launched this new format of the blog back on March 9, Australians made up 81.4% of my audience. Of the remaining 18.6%, the US audience made up 12.9%. The other 5.7% included viewers from UK, Ireland, South Korea, Germany, Malaysia, Qatar, Sweden and Canada.

The first week of the new format saw the following results

18.4% Monday ----- Topical Soapbox
16.7% Wednesday - History
15.8% Thursday ---- Gripe of the Week
14.0% Tuesday ----- Sydney Insights
12.3% Saturday ----- TV Talk
11.4% Sunday ------- NRL Round Review
11.4% Friday -------- Garden Palace Book update

Over the weeks there was several changes and some particular blogs received big view numbers.

The top 10 individual blogs were.

1. Marriage Equality - Gripe #6
2. Australian Entertainer Arrested - Topical Soapbox #4
3. Central Station - Sydney Insights #5
4. Gowings Department Store - History #6
5. The Con - Sydney Insights #4
6. Hyde Park - Sydney Insights #3
7. Queen For Gay Rights - Topical Soapbox #1
8. Roosters - NRL Review #6
9. Bad Manners - Gripe #4
10.Julia Gillard - Topical soapbox #3 / Sharks - NRL Review #3

Overall the viewership of my blog progressed weekly as follows

Week One - UP 6.1%
Week Two - UP 9.5%
Week Three - UP 9.3%
Week Four - UP 11.2%
Week Five - UP 8.4%
Week Six - UP 10.2%

After 6 weeks the pages viewership is as follows and its comparison to Week One

17.6% Monday Topical soapbox (Down 0.8%)
16.2% Tuesday Sydney Insights (Up 2.2%)
16.1% Thursday Gripe of the Week (Up 0.3%)
14.4% Wednesday History (Down 2.3%)
14.2% Sunday NRL Review (Up 2.8%)
10.3% Friday Garden Palace Book Update (Down 1.1%)
9.8% Saturday TV Talk (Down 2.5%)

This could be due to the day of the week or the subject matter. Not sure really.

Australian viewers were listed as 81.4% before we started this format.
The changes week to week were as follows:

Week One --- 79.8% (Down 0.6%)
Week Two --- 78.7% (Down 1.1%)
Week Three - 77.9% (Down 0.8%)
Week Four --- 77.2% (Down 0.7%)
Week Five --- 75.6% (Down 1.6%)
Week Six ----- 73.0% (Down 2.6%)

TOTAL - Down 8.4%

This is a great result as my blogs international audience is growing very fast in recent weeks!
The increase has gone from 18.6% to 27%!
The US have always held the second largest slice of the viewership initially with 12.9%
The changes week to week for the US were as follows:

Week One --- 13.0% (Up 0.1%)

Week Two ---14.0% (Up 1.0%)

Week Three - 13.7% (Down 0.3%)

Week Four --- 13.7% (0.0%)

Week Five --- 14.1% (Up 0.4%)

Week Six ----- 14.7% (Up 0.6%)

TOTAL - Up 1.8%

This is a solid result but in a different light the increase is less than a quarter of the overall increase for the international viewership.

As a result we saw big increases in other countries audience.

The Top 10 countries overall in viewership and their increases are below.

73.0% Australia ----- Down 8.4%

14.7% USA ------------ Up 1.8%

5.3% Germany ---- Up 4.5%

2.5% Russia --------- Up 2.5%

1.5% UK -------------- Down 0.4%

1.1% South Korea -- Up 0.1%

0.5% Ireland ---------- Down 0.5%

0.5% Romania ------- Up 0.5%

0.3% Malaysia -------- Down 0.1%

0.3% France ---------- Up 0.3%

Other countries that have been in the top 10 during the previous 6 weeks were:

Indonesia - Canada - Sweden - Qatar

Other countries that have appeared in weekly top ten periodically were:

South Africa - Denmark - Turkey - Bulgaria - Pakistan - Italy - Lebanon - New Zealand - Austria

In terms of number of views, in the 6 weeks this new format has been in existence there has been a total of 1,923 views which is an average of 320 per week!

So thank you very much to all of you who have viewed and shared my blog over this time.

There will be no change to the format for the next six weeks as all topics will be flourishing with content.

Monday Topical Soapbox will continue to serve as a review of current headlines mixed with my own warped views laced with cynicism, wit and blatant subjective opinion. Previous stories that have ticked me off included Schapelle Corby, the Conclave, Politics, Media Moguls, Murderers, Asylum Seekers, Voters, Pedophiles, Enablers, Wobble boarders, Propagandists, Reality TV Talent Shows, and War Criminals.

Tuesday's Sydney Insights will continue to unearth landmarks in this great town that whilst are quite well known have an interesting history and purpose you may not have realised. Previous landmarks have included Mortuary Station, Fort Denison, Hyde Park, The Con, Central Station, and The Rocks.

Wednesday History has been Sydney focused except on one occasion, and it will continue to document historical events in Sydney's relatively short history. These have included the history of Cityrail, Sydney Trams, Royal Easter Show, WWII Attack on Sydney Harbour, Gowing's Department Store. We deviated with the history of the Vatican City during the recent Papal appointment.

Thursday's Gripe of the Week will continue to focus on the main source of my angst for the week. These are always topical and prevalent to my experiences and emotions that week. Previous gripes included Cyclists who continue to piss me off, Pedestrians - ditto, Commuters - yup, Bad Manners - hello, Tony Williams - please sack him, and Marriage Equality - get with it people.

Fridays Book Update has been keeping my viewers and fans of my first book up to date with the current revisions necessary to get my book back on the eBook stands. It is a greater task than first imagined and is currently behind schedule. Due to trademark use warnings and a limited premise when taking that into account, the story had to be moved to a new location which meant extensive re-writes. This has provided an upside as the story in general is also getting a once-over and is becoming an even greater book. It is only about 25% revised so a long way still to go.

Saturday's TV Talk is currently reviewing the entire series of My Family - my favourite TV show. There were 11 seasons and we just completed Season Six. The next 6 weeks will see this continue and the final week will be a review of the whole series including my top 10 episodes of all time. There were just over 100 episodes overall. TV Talk will be replaced with a new page for Saturdays once this is complete.

Sunday NRL Review will continue to serve as an NRL wrap-up of the weekly round. Recently the focus has been quite negatively focused on my team the Canterbury Bulldogs, but I do hope that this will turn around in the next 6 weeks. The page only covers the regular NRL season and will not review any representative games. The features of each weekly blog are images of real-life versions of the team mascots for the team which has the biggest win of the week. The five teams so far have been EELS, SEA EAGLES, SHARKS, STORM, and ROOSTERS.