Like any self-respecting data-obsessed individual, I’ve been poring over the site stats, feed stats, and Google AdSense stats for this blog. For the most part, I understand what I’m seeing. However, the feed stats area is so nascent that it’s left me a little confused.
FeedBurner gives me stats like “Total Hits,” “Total New Visitors,” “Total KBytes,” “Total Hits Saved,” “Total KBytes Saved, “Hits per Day” and “New Visitors per Day.” It reminds me of the days of deciphering “hits” versus “page views” versus “unique visitors.”
Anyway, after meeting Brad yesterday, I started checking out back issues of his blog, and ran across this entry which sheds at least a little light on the subject — and confirms the FeedBurner folks’ understanding of the stats’ shortcomings. (Or at least the need for more explanation.)
P.S. I wrote a piece for ClickZ Experts that focused on FeedBurner a while back.
P.P.S. RSS has got me thinking about the “broken” e-mail infrastructure. I haven’t posted much about e-mail but am watching the Caller ID for E-Mail and SPF merger, and look forward to events unfolding.
UPDATE: Dick Costolo of FeedBurner commented here about the stats issue, and also at Fred’s post on the topic. Check them out here. As a sidenote, it may seem we’re piling on FeedBurner, but the fact that Fred and Brad are both so interested in the topic (and FeedBurner is the only one doing something about it), would seem to indicate the company’s headed in the right direction.