The Conversational Index: Is Your Blog Sick?

Stowe Boyd, former president of Corante, notes another way that bloggers can tell the relative health of their blog. The Conversational Index attempts to quantify the amount of conversation within a blog, with the underlying assumption being that a vibrant and healthy blog is more like a conversation than a monologue.

I agree with Stowe. When people ask me to contrast a standard web site with a blog, one of the major differences that I cite is conversation. There should be an ongoing conversation between the blog author and his or her readers. This two-way exchange of ideas makes the author/reader relationship more enriching for both sides and enlarges the knowledge-base that the author and general readership share.

Stowe points to a simple formula that assigns a number to a blog that reflects the amount of conversation that occurs there.

"While working at Corante, I had the opportunity to peer at the stats for all sorts of blogs that we had going. And one thing that became really obvious is that successful blogs -- ones that were currently viable and vibrant, and those that were on a growth trajectory from their start -- shared a common characteristic: The ratio between posts and comments+trackbacks (posts/comments+trackbacks) was less than one. Meaning that there was more conversation -- as indicated by the number of comments and track backs offered by readers -- than posting articles. I will call this the Conversation Index, just to put a handle on it."

Stowe calculates the index with the formula: CI=P/(C+T), where CI is the index, P equals the number of posts that a blog has, C is the number of comments that readers have left, and T is the number of trackbacks that the blog receives. The scale is that a healthy blog has an index of less than one. Higher numbers indicate a blog in trouble as no one, it appears, cares enough to add to the conversation. This could indicate that an author is not clicking with his or her audience, does not provide information that the readership deems important, or does not put forth any valuable ideas.

Open Loops, except during the period beginning with my mother's death through a very difficult grieving period, has always strove to provide good information relevant to productivity, GTD, and time management. In addition to sharing other's ideas, such as this one about the Conversational Index, I've also tried to share some original ideas that I have found helpful. Information has been provided in a variety of formats from simple news-style reporting to humorous posts that drip with sarcasm. When readers comment, I respond when I can provide additional information or clarify relevant points. Sometimes, I'll respond just to cheer a great reader idea. In any case, I read all comments sent to the blog.

As a result, here are the stats for Open Loops: Number of posts=163, Number of Comments=600, Number of trackbacks=181. The Open Loops CI formula looks like this: CI=163/(600+181). The resulting conversational index is .21 (yes, that's a point two one), which is a fantastic score! Thank you to all Open Loops readers for making this a great place to exchange great ideas.

Thanks also to ToDoOrElse.com for pointing the way to Stowe's Blog

Comments

[GBGames]

GBGames' Blog: 342 posts, 503 comments (both actual comments and trackbacks combined as WordPress doesn't seem to let me look at each separately).

342/503 = 0.68

Hmm. Well, I could chalk up part of that score to the fact that game development is a very small niche in the world of topics, and indie game development even more so. On the other hand, I could do worse than to come up with more interesting and thought-provoking posts.

[Bert]

GBGames & Geof--
Good CI's for both of you! Congrats! Geof, I agree with the post on your blog that the intent of your blog should determine how important a CI is for a blog.

[philgerb]

Interesting way to score your own blog. Great job on .21. I'm at .38, so perhaps I'm .38 special (sorry, I couldn't resist the 80s reference).

[Bert]

Phil--

As my grandmother would say, "you're a pistol!" (sorry, I couldn't resist he firearm reference!)