Inside Baseball

Chess Bloggers talking about their visitor stats...

• Who's that watching? - Streatham & Brixton Chess Club
  
  
• It's a Numbers Game... - Chessbuff on Chess

...though admittedly, I've been known to do the same from time to time.

Headlines, Headlines, Headlines

Too many items, not enough time for individual posts. Vacations take such an incredible toll on bloggers...

Monokroussos retires again? - In a recent post, Dennis says that "blogging has become stale and a chore." I feel that way myself sometimes, though not at the moment. It never seems to take that long before the itch returns. It will be interesting to see how long he stays away this time. A new campaign, J'adoube?

Yes I know, I've been tagged - I'm trying to decide whether I should be happy with BDK for giving me an easy topic to post about or whether I should be pissed at him for telling me what I have to write about. I'll decide after I write the post -- which will take a few days, so bear with me. The Kenilworthian tagged me; I wonder who will be next.

First mover advantage is a powerful thing - In response to BDK's cautionary note, let me say that 1) the more the merrier and 2) I'm feeling more than secure in my role.

Africa, a hotbed of chess controversy - The Kenyan Chess Blog has been reporting on the inside dealings involved in the selection of the Kenyan team (here also), as well as the Ugandan teams' inability to attend the All-Africa games due to lack of government funding. It seems like chess federations in Africa are using FIDE as their model for openness, good governance, financial accountability and operational effectiveness.

Haunstrup returns - Joshua Haunstrup has resurrected his blog after a long hiatus with two games he played at the Boylston Chess Club -- a loss against Dan Schmidt in the October 2006 Thursday Night Swiss and a win against Alexander Paphitis in the 2006 Spring Open.

Chess Bloggers leveraging public relations professionals - Who knew that breaking into the chess blogosphere required the use of professional PR? I received this e-mail from Sara Walsh, who identifies herself as the Press Liason for Dr. Mark Ginsburg:

Seventh Rank Associates
Dr. Mark Ginsburg
Editor of http://nezhmet.wordpress.com
mark@seventhrank.com

Sara Walsh
Press Liaison http://nezhmet.wordpress.com
princesschess@gmail.com

PRESS RELEASE

Born to the Fischer era, Dr. Mark Ginsburg was one of many talented teens making the junior rounds in the 1970s. Dr. Mark Ginsburg received his International Master title in 1982 from FIDE, the World Chess Organization headed at that time by GM Fridrik Olafsson. He won the Manhattan Chess Club Championship twice, in 1988 and 1990, before that venerable Carnegie Hall institution sadly went the way of the dodo. His peak rating was 2578 in 1992, putting him 28th in the USA. His specialty is opening innovation.

Mark's undergraduate degree was from Princeton (Biology) and did graduate work at NYU, culminating in a Ph.D. in Information Systems. He is the author or co-author of two programming textbooks and numerous peer-reviewed articles on groupware, digital libraries, and e-business strategy. As for chess, his writings have appeared in "Chess Life" and he was the technical editor for GM Joel Benjamin's magazine "Chess Chow" in the early 1990s.

Using his skills as a writer and storyteller, he is now bringing to life his chess career of over three decades with enlivening anecdotes and wild games. IM Mark Ginsburg's new website is http://nezhmet.wordpress.com. From his 1974 game as a 15 year old against the great GM Bent Larsen to his more recent adventures in the 2007 National Open, these games come alive with his wit and banter rather then lengthy computer annotations. Print them out or bring a board to the computer, playing along with the games, you'll share the joys and heartaches of the moves he makes.

Macauley Peterson's favorite chess musician is Macauley Peterson - It didn't do that much for me, but as you'll see from the e-mail below, he went to great lengths to make sure you didn't miss it. You have to admire his tenacity.

From: "Macauley Peterson"
To: "Mark Crother", "SusanPolgar", "Peter Doggers", "Jennifer Shahade", "bccadmin"
Subject: Macauley's "Today In Dortmund" -- Chess FM intro
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 12:11:34 -0400

The first day of ICC's Chess.FM webcast coverage of the Dortmund super-tournament started a little differently from the rest. But you wouldn't know it from the ICC Chess.FM OnDemand replay. Ostensibly due to "sound quality issues" my intro was cut from the archived show. Yes, I know it was unorthodox, and clearly a little silly, but I hope some people were amused at least, and to that end I'm pleased to present the way the June 23rd show REALLY started…

http://www.macauleypeterson.com/WP/?p=46

Cheers,
Macauley

BCC Weblog crosses 100,000 visitors mark - Now, that was a nice number to come home to.

Searching for BCC Weblog

Sorry, but this post does not star Ben Kingsley as Bruce Pandolfini....

November 13th marked the two year anniversary of this blog. As a result, I now have access to quite a bit of data on visitors, referrers, and search terms. Today, I thought I might share the search related information.

As the blog's content has continued to grow and its page rank increased, more and more visitors have arrived through search engine queries. During the first year or so search engines accounted for less than 15% of visitors; more recently, the number is definitely above 25%. For the full two years, searches account for 23.3% of visitors with known referrals.

The top 5 or so search terms that lead surfers to BCC Weblog bring few surprises, but as you continue down the list interesting insights emerge as to what attracts visitors here. Here are the top 25 search terms for this blog over the past two years:

1. chess (19.0%) - I bet this came as a shock!


2. club (3.5%) - No surprise.


3. boylston (3.0%) - ditto


4. blog (2.7%) - ditto


5. and (2.5%)


6. the (2.3%)


7. beauty (1.3%) - Finally things get more interesting. Beauty and the Geek first made these pages when the show's production company called the club looking for "chess geeks" to try out for the show. Then, as you may recall, one of the show's contestants -- Joe Block -- was introduced as a chess champion and chess was included in several episodes. Well it turns out that a mediocre FOX reality series has much broader appeal than chess to the point where it can become a major driver of visitors to a chess blog.


8. geek (1.3%) - See "beauty"


9. bcc (1.0%) - Surprised this wasn't higher?


10. erikson (0.9%) - I have one post which includes a picture of a statue of Leif Erikson. I never realized he was so popular.


11. tricks (0.8%) - The blog gets a lot of searches for "chess tricks." They must be disappointed when they click on the link in this post.


12. pastrami (0.8%) - Maybe Philadelphia should have renamed their team the Pastrami. Masterminds is nowhere to be found in the list.


13. wamala (0.7%) - Given that this story broke only a couple of months ago, it is amazing how quickly it has shot up the list.


14. leif (0.7%) - See "erikson"


15. boston (0.7%) - People searching for "chess club boston" often find their way here.


16. severine (0.6%) - See "wamala"


17. blogs (0.6%) - Not much to say here.


18. rules (0.6%) - Many people search for "rules and regulations of chess." I'm sure they are not particularly happy when they get this.


19. weblog (0.5%) - Just goes to prove that "blog" is more popular than "weblog."


20. knights (0.4%) - Mostly "Knights Errant", but the chess piece itself generates some traffic.


21. regulations (0.4%) - See "rules"


22. krasik (0.4%) - Either he's the most popular member of the Boston Blitz or this is how he usually linked to the blog during the 2005 season. You decide.


23. dedijer (0.4%) - Everyone likes to look at a pretty face.


24. lief (0.4%) - A lot of people have trouble spelling the Viking explorer's first name.


25. sanja (0.4%) - See "dedijer"