How many of us are there? How many visit daily on average? What are the busiest times..days? Just curious. Phil.
Posted by Delzell (Member # 1965) on :
Really going to make Steve work today
I remember a chart Steve posted that had the totals per day for a month of posts. It was neat to look at. Posted by Mark Smith (Member # 298) on :
How about we all reply, and create the LONGEST POST EVER? Hehehe...
Posted by Marty Happy (Member # 302) on :
Proud to be a taxpayer in the best community ever!
Posted by Kelly Thorson (Member # 2958) on :
There's me! Posted by Rick Beisiegel (Member # 3723) on :
And don't forget me too
Posted by captain ken (Member # 742) on :
the front page says 8,530 thank goodness they all dont post every day!
Posted by William DeBekker (Member # 3848) on :
ok
Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :
And me! Been around here since '98.
Posted by George Perkins (Member # 156) on :
Si, I think one of us is having memory problems. I've been here since 95 or 96 and you were here then.
Posted by Kissymatina (Member # 2028) on :
I'm in. Speaking of which, I gotta call Barb. I think it's about tax time for me.
Posted by Delzell (Member # 1965) on :
George, I think it is you. At the bottom of both of your posts it say you both registered Nov 98. So either you are wrong or they are both wrong and Si is going by the writing on the wall.
Posted by Delzell (Member # 1965) on :
Also is Philip asking for the count of registered members or resident members? That may help too.
Posted by Steve Shortreed (Member # 436) on :
At last a question I can sink my teeth into. Let me get some figures in place and I'll be back with an "Everything you ever wanted to know about Letterville" post. Stay tuned!
Posted by Randy Campbell (Member # 2675) on :
just paid my second year duesand loving it. Posted by Joe Endicott (Member # 628) on :
I may be wrong, but I believe that as far as the "Registered" dates are concerned, the BB was updated Nov. 98, and everyone who was registered at that time shows that as their date.
Posted by Steve Shortreed (Member # 436) on :
Joe's right. The data you see, as well as the member numbers, have nothing to do with when someone first discovered Letterville.
I'm one of those people that horde things. Nothing gets thrown out. In fact, we still have every e-mail saved that we ever received since 1995. We're going out tonight, but I'll see if I can find a list of the original 25 shops that we started with.
In the meantime, somebody may find the story of us and how Letterville was born an interesting read. Like most of my writing, it's a tad long. Should also mention that this was written in 1998, so some of the info may be outdated.
I remember the "Old Board"..........and when Steve put this new one up, how a bunch of were sniveling about makin changes...........hahahaha
..........cj
Posted by Suelynn Sedor (Member # 442) on :
I've been here since 1998. I found this site, then got to my first meet, and have been hooked ever since!
Suelynn
Posted by Chuck Churchill (Member # 68) on :
I think I qualify as one of the original 25. I found this site in 95 within the first week of having dial-up access to the Internet. Actually Steve found me bumbling around at another site and suggested I post my question on his new his new site.
Posted by Jeff Spradling (Member # 1615) on :
Well I remember coming here in my dad and going home in my mom........oh wait......that was smithville......sorry! Posted by Checkers (Member # 63) on :
To see when some of you old timers joined, check out the Member Database on the home page. I don't know if the id number means too much, but, in that database I'm # 410. I've been here since 27-June-1996.
Havin' fun,
Checkers
Posted by Judy Pate (Member # 237) on :
I've been around since '95. I think something happened on the BB in '98 that caused our join date to change. Maybe Steve can tell us who has been here the longest. Judy
Posted by Bernice Tornquist (Member # 16) on :
I registered sometime in '98 and really appreciate Letterville very much. Steve, you have done, and are doing a great job.
How did I get such a small registration #...16?
I feel privileged.
And you, Steve, are #436...you should be #1
Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
I'm a new contributor here but back in 96 my twin brother Hassle Fiasco was here and I was just a merchant.
Posted by Kimberly Zanetti (Member # 2546) on :
quote:I've been here since 27-June-1996.
Okay, that's too weird...I can remember EXACTLY what I was doing on that day. My husband (fiance at the time) and I had this big wedding planned for August 24, 1996...June 27th which was a Thursday, we were sitting around talking and he said - let's get married this weekend! So we eloped on Saturday June 29th, 1996 but didn't tell anyone and then still had our big wedding in August, we just "faked it".
Thanks for the memories!
Posted by Steve Shortreed (Member # 436) on :
We're going through old website backups searching for files from the early days. Some are backed up on tape. Remember tape backup? I have to locate a system that has a drive. We're hoping the old system my Daughter inherited still has one that works.
While we search for our first guestbook, you guys can lookover the data we do have. This should answer most of your questions. Here we go!
In the beginning we had a list called Shops Around The World. Entries to this list were added one at a time manually. We're looking for that first list from 1995, but I can still recall searching the Internet everyday for anything that might have something to do with signs. After lots of emails and phone calls, that original list had a grand total of approx. 28 names. We were thrilled! After all, it was something to do instead of just stew over the heart attacks.
By 1998, it was getting to be a real chore maintaining that list. A programmer was hired to create the database we still use today. We're badly in need of new databases. These old ones arn't pretty, but they work. As of today, 8,532 potential Letterhead shops have entered their information with us.
Out of that group, 4,117 took the next step and registered to post on The Letterville BullBoard. 2,535 of those that registered to post have made at least one post. Lots of lurkers in Letterville. Auction registration contains 126 individuals that have not registered here at the BB or Letterville Database. If anyone reading this is in that group, please go to www.letterhead.com/signup.cgi and tell us about yourself and your company. If spam is of concern, you can rest assured that our mailing list has never, and will never be for sale or rent at any price.
Letterville is sponsored by Residents instead of suppliers. We offer advertising opportunities, but Letterville exists as a tribute to a grass roots movement called Letterheads. Our first interest has always been the people who make signs. Since we ran a small shop for 25 years, it's only natural. Income from Residents helps prevent any conflict of interest and insures Letterville will always retain it's unique appeal.
As of right now, Letterville has 301 paid Residents. 96 of you are up for renewal this month. We want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who help pay the bills here. The extra perks we offer Residents are a nice incentive, but it takes a real believer to send in $50 bucks each year to help pay for something that is basically free. To learn more about becoming a Resident, please look at www.letterhead.com/residents/
How many visit Letterville on a typical day? To answer that honestly, it's important to understand some geeky terms. Until websites such as Letterville have an independent third party auditor required by law to verify reported stats, some skepticism will, and should, exist. Activity logs are not of much interest to users, but corporate marketing types eat up this stuff. Here's what we know about Letterville.
If you look in the bottom left corner of the BB you will see a counter. We've used this free counter, available from MicroSoft B-Central, for several years. It monitors the "visitors" to the first page of The Letterville BullBoard. We define a visitor the same way we do at our home. During the day, several people knock on our door. Some only visit once, but others return several times. Every knock on the door is counted as a visitor. If you read the BB, leave and return later in the day, this counter records each time you open the BB.
Here's a copy of the report we get from B-Central. It shows "visitors" in a calendar format. It's interesting to note the consistancy in this report. If you look at the top, there is a graph that indicates visitors by time. Note that it is PST. The most action occurs around 9am EST. At the rate I'm typing, this post will be ready just about that time.
You still with me? By now many are probally wishing Philip had never asked these questions and got me started. We're often asked this sort of info behind the scenes, so this is a great opportunity to write it out and save for future use. As I said before, marketing guys love stats and we love to hear from marketing guys.
Now for the big question. How many unique visitors visit Letterville daily? Letterville does not own it's own server. We are hosted at a place called localweb.com in North Carolina. Everyday we are sent an activity log generated by their server. It's a fairly geeky document full of strange terms. Before making this post, we called LocalWeb to clarify what a unique visitor is, and how that figure is determined.
Below is the log report for last Saturday. This is a particularly interesting day for a couple reasons. First it was a Saturday. You would think our users would have better things to do on a weekend. The second detail that makes this report special is the fact a major Sign Show was taking place in Atlantic City. Despite everything going on, over 4,500 still found time to visit Letterville.
LocalWeb uses the term "sessions served" instead of unique visitor. They went on to explain that that figure is based on sessions served to unique IPs. The largest Internet Provider is still AOL. All their users are routed thru 4 servers in W. Virgina. Since the AOL crowd is sharing 4 IP addresses, LocalWeb says it is virtually impossible to determine a more accurate figure based on IPs. When I pushed him on the importance of these figures, he stated that the sessions served figure is as close as they can get to unique visitors. He went on to say that figure is actually on the low side due to the AOL issue.
We still had our doubts so I contacted the people at MicroSoft B-Central. They offer a more detailed activity report that includes the term unique visitors for at a cost of $200 US annually. That cost includes 50,000 "page views" a month. You pay 30 cents for every additional 1,000 page views. When you consider we had almost 25,000 page views on Saturday alone, the cost of the service goes up considerably.
I was willing to cough up the dough just to have backup set of numbers to prove our integerty, but the unique visitor term still bothered me. When asked how FastCounter determines unique vistors, she passed me on to her supervisor. He proceeded to tell me the same story as the guy at LocalWeb about unique IP numbers. I brought up the AOL issue and he verified what LocalWeb had said. Claimed everyone knew that! We didn't. Bet he can't even make a sign. In the end, their advanced service was no different than what we are already getting.
So whats it all mean? To us, it looks like approx. 5,000 different people visit Letterville on an average day. Some return a few times throughout the day to see whats new since their last visit. The average is 12-13,000 visitors per day. The most I can recall on a given day was just under 25,000 visitors. Why? I hate to admit it, but us Letterheads like a good scrap and/or car wreck as much as the rest of the World. On that day we had a particularly nasty war of words going on. What can I say? It happens in good families too.
Soooo. Next question?
Posted by Jeff Spradling (Member # 1615) on :
Good answer...next question....with that many hits in a given day why is it when I log in there are usually only about 30 or so logged in users. Right now there are only 4. May be a dumb question but I'm not a bbologist. Posted by Steve Shortreed (Member # 436) on :
A better question would be "Why are you and I still up at 6am in the morning?" In my case it's answering these questions, but that's ok.
The figures you refer to are registered BB users that are actually logged into the BB. Not everyone takes the time to log in just to read the BB. There's also all sorts of people reading this BB that are not registered.
I also suspect the time has something to do with it. It's almost 7am here in Fergus, Ontario. That's only 4am on the left coast. The vast majority of Letterville users still live in North America. Until we can convince more that a vampire's life is the way to go, visits at this hour of the day will always be just a tad lower.
Time for me to get back in my box. Barb should be at her post by 9am while I sleep.
Posted by Jeff Spradling (Member # 1615) on :
Not still up. Just my average 4am-5am start of the day. Only way to get in an 18-20 hour day I thought when most here in N. America where sleepin more on the other side of the globe would be on here. Their loss
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