RSS Readership

Work and real life in general has got in the way recently. It’s not all bad as I’ve been busy with a new work project which I’ve just about finished.

One thing that I have been able to do is investigate how you reach and read this blog.  Some of you follow using Blogger (50) while most appear to be using RSS (about 250) in one form or another.

I’m a great fan of RSS and make heavy use of www.feedly.com to keep up with hobby, technology and sport news along with lots of diverse web sites.  This has taught me one thing: RSS reader views don’t show as regular page visits.

My curiosity was piqued and I did a bit of digging.  Just look at what I found:



What I actually unearthed was my daily RSS stats dating back to the day I started this blog in 2007 and that’s a lot of data!

The long term trend is comforting with a steady increase in daily subscribers (red) especially in the last three months or so.  I must be doing something right.

After a bit of reflection I realised the trends are easier to grasp when the data is averaged for each year:



I’m not quite sure what happened to cause the dip in subscribers at the end of 2014 but the change in the pattern of subscriber numbers post 2013 is due to Google’s closure of their Reader web application.  I’m sure some readers drifted away from RSS altogether whilst others took a while to find a suitable replacement.  I know I did.



I suspect, but can’t prove, that the higher viewing figures before 2011 were simply because blogging was relatively new and there weren’t so many hobby blogs around.  Again the dip post 2013 is due to Google closing their Reader web application.

Overall, it’s good to know that the RSS readership figures are healthy and my thanks to you for reading now, in the past and hopefully in the future.