TechWag

: Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

We all keep statistics on what is popular and what is not about what we write, but what if your long tail articles are getting to be more popular that what you are writing now? It might be time to look at what people are looking at, and decide if you want to write more of those kinds of articles.

longtail

Here are my top 18 articles, some of them are not really articles at all, if we pull the landing page, and the Google image search that is tied to one of my popular articles here is what we end up with as the top popular articles for 2009.

IBM layoff rumors

H1B visa holders

Microsoft lays off employees

AACS (remember that from 2007 and the commotion around Digg censoring the AACS Key.)

Using social media to launch a new product

More on being banned in Google (and they still have not done it yet, beyond worrying, using plan B already, with Google coming in at 20% of my overall traffic, most of it image driven now)

Another 2007 file this time from April 2007

OLPC Students using the OLPC Computer to surf bad content (also from 2007)

Zombies and highway sign hacking

What to do when your social network is boring

A thought on why Mini Microsoft has to remain anonymous for the rest of their life

Social Media and bubble gurus

Some hacking activity

PayPerPost commotion from 2007

Ask the Admin article from 2008

And finally some interesting information about The Net Effect of being on the Friend Feed people to follow

Three articles from 2007, one from very early in 2008, and the rest in the last 90 days are what are showing up in the popularity list. What makes this interesting is that if you have a cute happy hamster in your file as a picture people really do love hamster pictures and will hit your web site a lot to follow the story line that required a cute hamster picture. All Hamsters aside, what is interesting is the longevity of some ideas, like the issues around PayPerPost or OLPC when we find out what they are doing or not doing.

The longevity of files is what makes things interesting when you are looking at what is popular and what is not. If you are writing for today and covering today’s events, or if you are writing with an eye to the long tail or the longevity of the articles you are writing you will want to write in line with ideas or memes that have a long shelf life. Most of the writing about shiny new toys has few if any results in the long tail, while crimes and misdemeanors seem to have a longer life. The more interesting the controversy, or the cuter the picture of the hamster, the more hits the file will get over a long period of time.

When you are figuring out what to write about, run some quick statistics first, see what has a long life, and can provide a large series of hits over the long run. This might be one of those things that will make your blogging more interesting. Either that, or just get used to putting up pictures of cute hamsters.