December 6, 2002

  • It appears that the average daily posting rate on xanga these days is somewhere between 20,000 (rate at 6 am this morning) and 94,000 (rate at 3 pm yesterday).  That, my friends, is a lot of posts!  While some people may post multiple posts, most probably post just a single post a day.  So those numbers above also suggest the # of xangans posting daily. 


     


    Just for the sake of argument, let’s severely under-represent the probable number and assume the lower figure, 20,000, as the number of xangans posting daily.  This compares to 1600 new posts last Thanksgiving (2001) and that was a ‘heavy traffic’ day back then (holidays usually are).


     


    What amazes me most about this is not the tremendous growth of xanga, but how it has grown.  Back a year ago, it seems the top 10 Featured Content posts were raking in between 40-70 eProps per.  And today, despite the tremendous growth, the magnitude of average comments/props for the top Featured posts remains largely unchanged (well, maybe the top ones garner slightly more attention—but certainly less than double). 


     


    Essentially, xanga has grown extremely huge but not tall.  Rather than shooting skyward like a Mt. St. Helens, xanga has grown like Mauna Loa, spreading out with a low-angle cone.



    Hey, ‘shield volcanoes’, like Mauna Loa, aren’t trite: they are actually the largest volcanoes in the world.  Though the ‘peak’ is never that ‘tall’, the base is truly expansive and tends to evermore-expand as the highly-fluid, lowly-viscous basalt emissions flow readily across the ground tens of kilometers away before finally cooling.



    And thus seems xanga: ever-expanding but hardly peaking.  Even possibly the most commented and propped blog ever, John's apology of last week—which had front page 'News' billing, mustered only 253 comments and 494 props.  Ha, 253 out of 20,000 (but more likely 50,000) potential commenters is hardly even a perceptible goosebump on a newborn baby's smooth butt!


     


    What are the implications?  Several come to my mind, and I'll paint a few possible future scenarios in a blog to come soon.  But I'd like your impressions first.

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