Third Blog Birthday

 

 

As is traditional on this blog, the cake shows only one candle, the ironic rite of passage preferred by patrons of a local restaurant who note birthdays with minimal fuss. Orbit completed, precise ages not seemly to disclose.

Having already described, in a previous post, why I blog, this anniversary is about you, the reader. 

Here are the places where readers live:

Top Ten countries

United States              317,722

United Kingdom          63,992

Germany                      27,603

Ukraine                         18,792

France                           18,731

Canada                          17,130

Russia                            13,954

Australia                        13,775

Finland                           4,310

Spain                               2,912

 

Top Ten Posts

Are girls too normal? Sex differences in intelligence 8 Sep 2013, 24 comments 8284

Gone with the Wind 20 May 2015, 38 comments                                                6109

The 7 tribes of intellect 2 Dec 2013, 59 comments                                                4762

Income, brain, race, and a big gap 31 Mar 2015, 32 comments                          4550

Give me a child until he is seven, 20 May 2013, 6 comments                             4317

Do women find bright men sexy? 18 Sep 2015, 27 comments                             4137

Flynn effect as a retesting, rule-based gain 2 Nov 2013, 14 comments               3481

Chanda Chisala: An African Hereditarian? 7 Jul 2015, 19 comments                3479

“It’s the people, stupid”: review of Wade 14 May 2014, 30 comments               2970

Intelligence in 2000 words 9 Dec 2013, 14 comments                                        2963

 

The most read post “Are girls too normal” is about sex differences in the variance of intelligence, a matter which was well known in the 1960s but which is news today, probably due to poor psychology teaching. My sole contribution was to depict the differences in a simpler way.

Hot on its heels is the more recent “Gone with the Wind”, which is a case of a snappy title bringing attention to the soberly entitled “Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fifty years of twin studies”, though that paper was already being widely read from conventional sources.

“The 7 tribes of intellect” keeps going strong.

“Income, brain, race and a big gap” is in fourth place, and is notable for going on to generate a good debate with the author of the paper I was criticising, leading many new readers to go back to have a look at it, before going on to read the author’s reply and my rejoinder. The sudden spike in interest, leading to 4,729 readers in one day was due to a mention by Steven Pinker, for which many thanks. All authors are invited to reply to posts, and it is great when they do so.

Referring URLs  and sites

URLs:

Google                      15,200

Unz + iSteve              3,950

HBD Chick                 2,808

Marginal Revolution 1,350

Websites

Twitter                       42,647

Google                       34,566

Unz                              6,722         

Reddit                          4,897

HBD Chick                  3,602

iSteve                           2,557

feedly                           2,254

facebook                      2,232

 

As you would expect on this blog, here is a cautionary note about metrics. I have used “pageviews” throughout, as the common currency of blogs. I am aware that some of those page views are very brief: a new reader sees some numbers and a graph on the page and quickly decides to read something else. Average time on a page is 4 minutes. Remember, this is much better data than we have for bookshelves. Right now I can look at some books on my shelves and note that I have read only a few pages, and some almost none.

My readers, or unique page viewers, are 50% new visitors 50% returning visitors. Mostly men, there is a peak for young adults.

 

Their interests are news and politics and education. What I would like to know is how many of you are teaching or studying psychology.

Twitter

Twitter is taking on a life of its own. Formerly I used it simply to announce each post, and to propagate some aphorisms to tempt people to read the blog. I have a mere 1457 followers (I came to the party late), tweet sparingly (4 tweets per day), but still get roughly 323,000 impressions every 28 days, which is 11,200 impressions a day. I get 110 re-tweets per 100 tweets. I have delusional expectations about any tweet composed in the early dawn, but nonetheless get attention with 30 tweets a month garnering more than a thousand impressions (one with 10,751) almost enough to make me feel I should drop the blog and tweet all day.

Top at 58 re-tweets is a graph showing effect sizes for early intervention studies. Next at 32 re-tweets are two aphorisms, as are most of the other top nine depicted.

 

79% of my Twitter followers are male.

Blog supporters

My blog readers vary from experts in the field (though they almost never post up comments) to recent voyagers into these cognitive waters, (who ask questions and welcome references). I receive a steady stream of papers and books, and welcome those, even if it often takes me time to post something about them. Keep them coming.

Thank you to all of you who have loyally re-tweeted my tweets about each blog post, which is specially kind when done by celebrated bloggers like HBDChick, Jayman, iSteve and others, all of whom have their own blogs to tend to. Commendations, mentions and re-tweets by figures like Steve Sailer,  Charles Murray and Steven Pinker greatly assist me. 

Now we are 3

On the first blog birthday I said : Finally, I can claim that in one year 71,701 readers have given my words a look, as opposed to the modal 6 if I had published a paper. (At that stage I had 199 Twitter followers.)

On the second blog birthday I said: At the end of two years I have written 418 posts, which is 4 a week, come rain or shine. Page views all time history at the end of two years: 313,753 (At that stage I had 597 Twitter followers).

On this, the third blog birthday, there are a total of  627 posts, I have an all time total of 657,875 readers.

Thank you, all of you.

If you have any ideas to help me reach more researchers and students, please let me know. (In particular, I would like to be read by university teachers writing psychology text books). As a matter of general preference, I seek readers who understand the basic rules of evidence based arguments, and prefer focussed discussion, with references. They are doubtful, cautious, helpful, open-minded but easily startled. Approach them carefully, with a gentle recommendation that they might like to take a brief look at these pages. Perhaps.