* Big Numbers Weekend

By now everyone has a Stat Counter on their blog to judge who's reading their sites - and when. They check to see where readers are coming from. Some go as far to record the IP addresses. (OK, I'm guilty of that) Anyone who uses this system and analyzes their readership knows the weekends are slower than the week by a couple hundred or so.

This weekend was different. I usually don't have this high of a readership on the weekend. But I shouldn't be surprised. I've got a cool new headline photo banner. Plus the new unopened Gale Community Center has been a hot topic. This was by far, the weekends biggest story. The most popular story of the week had over 2500 readers.

Another interesting stats; 72% of my readers spend 5 to 20 minutes a day on my site. 10% spend 20 minutes to an hour viewing the content. And 3% spend over an hour a day on the site. 6.9% of you pop on and off in less than a minute. (I've got some speed readers) I've got a handful of visitors that's glued to my site, all day and all night - documenting and copying every printed word and downloading every single photograph. While some call them the Alderman's blog-monitors, I consider them very loyal readers. I've got at least 150 readers who read the blog between midnight and 6 AM. Every night. Now that's some serious night owls.

Still, yesterday drew more individual readers (1574 unique visitors) than last Monday or Tuesday. (1507 and 1500 unique visitors, respectfully) That's what's shocking. Plus, the readership far surpassed the number of people in attendance to listen to Aunt Jan speech at the Obama rally yesterday at the Broadway Armory in Edgewater. By nearly a thousand. This shouldn't be confused with page reads (page loads) which is considerably higher. The link up from the Reader blog didn't hurt either.

Today we should have an increase in return readers. That's one of the readership stats that's dropped since I went to comment moderation. The reason being; I've got a bombshell of a story from Hugh that will be posted at noon. That should get you guys back. For those who continue to email and ask, the answer is no. I have no intention of letting the comments run wild anymore. I'm satisfied with quality over quantity. Comment moderation is still in effect.