Tweeting Journalists: Aftermath

A bit more than a week ago I published the Twitter network of (mostly Switzerland-based) journalists and a post about the mechanics behind the visualization.

Here is what happened after that:

In the first six hours after posting, the tweeting journalists’ network post has seen 800+ hits. Until today the post has been viewed 1,529 times, the main site has been viewed 320+ times. In the same time period, the background post about the mechanics behind the visualization has attracted 86 visitors. That’s much less attention than either of the above, but still substantial for an at least semi-technical behind-the-scenes post. Overall, I’m glad I could interest so many visitors by posting the network of tweeting journalists: It’s nice to get also some interaction with another community than my usual one.

By the by, above numbers make the tweeting journalists’ network post the most popular post of my blog so far. It is followed by the posts on:

• Old maps of undersea cables, a post that benefits partly from the fact that people like to search for “old maps” online.
• Gefährdung der Bevölkerung der Schweiz durch Kernkraftwerke: Eine Analyse, a post that is dear to me and for which I would wish for even more visitors than it already attracts. There may be more once the Swiss people will maybe vote on the future of nuclear energy. Like the Twitter network, this is one of my spare-time projects and it has also gained quite some popularity outside my usual circles. It is linked to from for example niewiederakw.ch and the analysis which it offers for viewing is cited in Rudolf Rechsteiner‘s (former Swiss MP) book “100% erneuerbar” (100% renewable) due to be published in March 2012.
• GoopenStreetMaple: Information wants to be free, a post on OpenStreetMap and Google Map Maker license terms – a topic which is prone to spark interest and discussion in the geo-crowdsourcing community.

Over on Twitter I have gained some followers after posting on tweeting journalists, but first of all I had many interesting interactions and a possibility for a collaboration around Twitter networks has come up also (more on that, when/if it happens).

On a less positive note

On a less positive note, I found that some very unpleasant people probably have some SEO strategy going (suffice to say, nationalists from a neighbouring country. I won’t give names, keywords or URLs). Again and again, I found that some other WordPress blogs have linked to my blog post (in, I think, automatic manner, under the heading “Related posts”) and thus left a so-called pingback under my blog post. A pingback is not much more than a hyperlink to the blog post that seemingly cites me. And since my blog post has been viewed by many people, I think it may be an SEO strategy to plant such a pingback.

Anyway, as of today the last two attempts were made to get a link from my blog. I want comments on my blog to be open and quick to appear, thus I moderate only in hindsight. I have been on my toes the last week to keep my blog clean. However, if anybody of you has stumbled across one of the offensive links, I apologize for it. Since I do not want my blog to link to somebody’s ugly propaganda, I have closed said post completely as of today.