What Do People Want to Read About Online? A Statistical Analysis of 40 Triond.com Articles

What do People Want to Read About Online?

by Henri Shenanigans - Investigative Journalist

Who will find this article useful?

This article was written for anyone thinking about writing articles to publish online. It should be of particular interest to Xomba users as it includes statistics on 40 articles’ page views. It could be of interest to those with existing sites who are considering developing more content and, when doing so, which fields or niches to include and which to avoid. Equally, because it contains insights into on-line user activity and coincidentally comical findings, it should be of interest to students of human nature and anyone who enjoys reading humorous articles online.

PLEASE NOTE: Details of a free to enter competition based on the findings discussed in this article appear below the paragraph entitled “AndAnotherThing’s Experiment” below. As yet no prize has been announced.

What data is this article based on?

Between November 2006 and March 2008, 40 articles on a diverse range of subjects, written by an eclectic group of eccentric writers known as AndAnotherThing, were published on Triond.com. This article is based in part on a statistical analysis of the data collected on the articles’ viewing figures and the incomes they have earned up to 14th May 2008. The survey does not claim to be comprehensive as the 40 articles had received less than 8000 views between them when their statistics were analysed. However it does claim that the statistics quoted are real and accurate. The conclusions reached, opinions shared and the comments made arising from them are the author’s alone. The article was written to stimulate debate and thought.

Who are AndAnotherThing?

In October 2006 several penniless writers established the group AndAnotherThing. The AndAnotherThing team had between them ad hoc expertise gained in many disparate areas and careers in the Arts, advertising, industry, PR, creative, commerce and academia. Their aim was to develop their own ‘life-style, magazine’ website. They hoped that in the future this would fund their endeavours as writers. Due to more lucrative commitments, their website has not been launches as yet

What is Triond.com?

Triond is an all-inclusive publishing service that does as it claims by enabling writers to publish their work. Triond publish their work on a network of sites covering a huge variety of topics and genres. Triond claims to “fulfil the potential inherent within your content”. Articles must reach a required standard and this has definitely risen since it was founded. Membership is free and Triond pays a proportion of the advertising revenue achieved to each member – at time of writing this article the proportion was 50%.

The Subject Matter of the Articles

The subject matters of AndAnotherThing’s 40 articles published, between November 2006 and March 2008, by Triond.com range dramatically. They include: cctv, property, millionaires, astrology, food, history, 60 word stories, tattoos, texting, blogging, romance, bird flu, The Simpsons, Posh ‘n’ Becks, football, love, relationships and sex.

AndAnotherThing’s Most Popular Article

In total the 40 articles combined had received 7,660 views since being published on dates ranging from November 2006 up to and including March 2008. By far the most popular article was Venus Between the Sheets - Love, Sex and Relationships (http://www.socyberty.com/Relationships/Venus-Between-the-Sheets---Love-Sex-and-Relationships.80747). This article has been viewed 2,430 times, accounting fro 31% of viewers, since it was published on 15th January 2007. Average views per month approximately 150 but this does not reflect the article’s trends of performance. For the first months after publication visitor figures remained in their twenties but in June 2007 this figure had increased to 152. In December 2007 the article was read 190 times. From 1st January 2008 – 15th May 2008 the article was viewed on 886 occasions.

It seems therefore that, without any direct marketing by the AndAnotherThing team, the article in question has gained and maintained a healthy interest. There are no accompanying illustrations with the piece, so what is it about the article that has proved to be popular?

Venus Between the Sheets – what is it about?

Venus Between the Sheets - Love, Sex and Relationships is an overview of Venus positions from Aries to Pisces. The gossipy piece offers an astrological perspective on the love lives, sex lives and relationship experience of all the Zodiac’s children. It is light hearted and humorous and does not claim to be comprehensive or infallible. It does suggest that if you know a person’s Venus position (where Venus was in their natal horoscope when they were born), you’ll have a unique understanding of the person. If nothing else, the article makes for excellent conversation at some (certainly not all) dinner parties and for office banter.

Venus or Mars Between the Sheets – what is the difference?

The second most popular article by AndAnotherThing is Mars Between the Sheets – Part One – Sex and Sexual Enjoyment (http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Horoscopes/Mars-Between-The-Sheets---Part-1---Sex-and-Sexual-Enjoyment.13710). Published only a week later than Venus Between the Sheets on 21st January 2007, it has however not performed nearly so well as that. In total Mars Between the Sheets has had 1,527 viewers over a similar time-frame as its counterpart Venus. It accounts for about 20% of all views of articles by AndAnotherThing published here. Its average viewers per month are approximately 98. The trend for this article is much the same as that described above for “Venus Between the Sheets”.

Conclusions about the Venus and Mars Articles

The only difference between the two articles cited above, as far as any prospective reader could detect in their titles, are the names of the planets in their titles and the absence of the word “love” in the title ranked second. For some reason (undetectable in the statistics) the Venus with love article is 11% more popular than the Mars without love article. Why this should be the case is open to a long-winded debate.

Does Sex Sell?

The proportion of the readers of the Venus Sex and Mars Sex articles who were attracted to read the articles will be considered later. However, because the third most popular article (see below) only receives about 9.5% of all viewers, why this should be the case must be considered. In knowledge of the entire range of the 40 articles this feature is based on, the commonality of the first (Venus Sex 31%) and second (Mars Sex 19%) most popular articles are that they are the only articles in the 40 to contain the word “sex” in their titles. This analysis concluded that people want to read about sex more than anything else covered in the entire 40 articles and therefore upholds the dictum “sex sells”.

Tattoos, Drunkeness or Texting – Which is most popular?

The third most popular article out of the 40 analysed is The Truth About Tattoos (http://www.socyberty.com/Lifestyle-Choices/The-Truth-About-Tattoos.16712). “Tattoos” has received 728 views since it was published on Triond, 23rd February 2007. Fourth was Embarrassing Drunks - Which Type are You? (http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Horoscopes/Embarrassing-Drunks---which-type-are-you.14656). Published 30th January 2007, Embarrassing Drunks has had 556 visits. Fifth was 10 Rules for Text Messages in New Relationships (http://www.socyberty.com/Relationships/10-Rules-For-Text-Messages-In-New-Relationships.16578), February 21st 2007 which recorded 530 visits. The analysis shows that reading about Tattoos is about 20% more popular than reading about drunkenness or texting but that, when it comes to attracting readers there is nothing to chose between drunkenness and texting.

The Truth About Tattoos is a passionate plea to those considering being tattooed to stop, think and not to proceed. Written with a comic touch, this is one of the most commented upon articles out of the entire 40. Either that or it reveals that tattooed individuals are a most vocal group online. Embarrassing Drunks - Which Type are You? asks its readers to examine their drunken behaviour. 10 Rules for Text Messages in New Relationships establishes and defines texting etiquette.

How Do Venus and Mars perform without Sex?

The articles which ranked 6th and 7th were like the article ranked number 1 about Venus. However neither Venus Between the Sheets – Making the Most of Love and Relationships: Part One (http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Horoscopes/Venus-Between-The-Sheets-–-Making-the-Most-of-Love-and-Relationships:-Part-One.15376) nor Venus Between the Sheets – Making the Most of Love and Relationships: Part Two (http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Horoscopes/Venus-Between-The-Sheets-–-Making-the-Most-of-Love-and-Relationships:-Part-Two.15377) have “sex” in their title. The articles, simultaneously published on 7th February, have achieved 386 and 347 visitors respectively or +/-5% each. The statistics do not show if most of the readers of Part I go on to read Part II but it is quite likely. Does this uncover a veracious audience for astrological content?

How Does Celebrity Perform?

“Mercury in the Signs - Marvin Gaye Case Study” (http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Horoscopes/Mercury-in-the-Signs---Marvin-Gaye-Case-Study.13019). This interesting article about Marvin Gaye, published 24th January 2007 has only been viewed 125 times (+1.5%). The article, which ranks a poor 8th, also looks at the dramatic effects of Mercury on all personalities, according to astrologers. I’d have thought this most original work would have been more popular. There is a perception, no doubt hence the millions of celebrity sites, that “celebrity sells” and that people like to read about them. This Marvin Gaye/Mercury article flies in the face of this perception. Furthermore the only other articles that in anyway mention celebrity in their titles rank a poor twelfth and a very poor 31st. Celebrity Big Brother - Scandal and Controversial Implications (http://www.socyberty.com/People/Love,-Lies-and-Reputations-–-Celebrity-Big-Brother-2007.14596) and Beckhams 2 Rule Ok! (http://www.socyberty.com/People/Beckhams-2-Rule-Ok.17148) have only received 82 viewers between them (66 and 12 respectively; published 30th January and 27th February 2007).

Stupid, Rude, Inadequate Bosses or Venus Nature Love Poetry?

Until I realised what it attempted to do I thought that Venus Nature: Love Poetry (http://www.quazen.com/Recreation/Horoscopes/Venus-Nature-Love-Poetry.18526) – ranked 9th out of 40 - was perhaps the most pretentious article I had ever read and I couldn’t fathom why the really funny article Stupid, Rude, Inadequate and Bad Bosses: Some reasons why people decide to work for themselves (http://www.bizcovering.com/Small-Business/Stupid-Rude-Inadequate-and-Bad-Bosses--Some-reasons-why-people-decide-to-work-for-themselves.27047), ranked below it in 10th place.

AndAnotherThing’s Experiment – FREE COMPETITION*

I saw what had inspired Venus Nature: Love Poetry while pondering my results and observations so far and studying the front page of www.Triond.com – I believe the writer of the awful piece had done something similar. I noticed how the offending article’s title included the words Venus and Love, two words that, it might be concluded, help to attract approximately 150 visits per month. Then, on the front page of Triond I saw a panel called “hot tags” these included:

Triond’s Hot Tags:

advice, beauty, business, child, children, Christian, Christmas, death, depression, Dreams, family, food, friends, fun, funny, god, guide, happiness, health, heart, history, home, hope, humor, Internet, Jesus, kids, Life, love, money, nature, pain, people, poem, poetry, relationship, relationships, religion, romance, Runnescape, school, thoughts, time, tips, Travel, war, women, world, writing,

All but the word Venus in the title Venus Nature: Love Poetry are present in the “hot tag” list. I concluded that the slushy, cringing piece was actually a cynical experiment in attaining higher visitor numbers. If this is the case the article ranked 9th out of 40 is, actually, in its way, quite funny. Nevertheless, I can’t believe anyone would be tempted to read an article called Venus Nature: Love Poetry.

AndAnotherThing’s Challenge – FREE COMPETITION DETAILS

To pit your wits against the writer of “Venus Nature: Love Poetry and enter the competition you must first be a member of Triond.com – membership is free. Now write, entitle and publish an article based on up to four words from Triond’s hot tags. To beat the “Venus Nature” writer your article must outperform Venus Nature: Love Poetry by achieving more than 85 views in the 13 months after its publication.

AndAnotherThing’s articles 11-40

The remaining articles, those ranked 11th – 40th account for 864 views in total, or just over 11% of the total views between them, or an average of 0.366% per article. This is “small potatoes” even in the microcosm that is AndAnotherThing and it would be tedious to list and describe and comment on each, each article and their statistics appears with links in the table below for the really curious anyway. However, before I turn to discussion of the revenue the articles made in total and individually, a couple of points should be made.

The first point is very subjective. As someone who surfs and researches regularly and reads all sorts articles and content from informative, entertaining and well written to mindless, badly written and quickly clicked shut – I found all the articles by AndAnotherThing to be a better read than average. That’s not to say that my opinion relates to that of the majority who read content online. In fact, because the AndAnotherThing articles that I found to be most entertaining are mostly absent from the top ten list – see below – my opinion is invalid. Despite this, if I had to recommend one AndAnotherThing article, it would be because I found it hilarious – please read For Love or Money? Why Do People Blog? (http://www.webupon.com/Blogging/For-Love-or-Money--Why-Do-People-Blog.72353).

My second point is that the statistics, as analysed, might have missed a good performer or a topic people like to read about. In light of this there is one article that deserves to be highlighted as it is relatively recent and, if the trends detected in the performance of the 1st and 2nd ranked articles are to be heeded, it could perhaps perform well in the future. This article happens to be one of my favourites too: Top Five Modern Rages: How to Avoid Falling Victim to Them (http://www.purpleslinky.com/Humor/Life/Top-Five-Modern-Rages-How-to-Avoid-Falling-Victim-to-Them.93555). This achieved 58 views in the 30 days since it was published on www.Triond.com, 15th March 2008

Conclusion – What People Read online according to AndAnotherThing

To conclude: Below I have produced this list of the Top Ten Topics viewed from the 40 articles by AndAnotherThing published by Triond since November 2006. The list is anything but definitive and suggests that a website encompassing sex, love, astronomy, tattoos, drunkenness and texting would be successful as that, according to the conclusions of this analysis, is what people want to read about online – so it should not be taken too seriously. (Try as I might I cannot formulate an idea for a website based on this analysis – perhaps you will have more luck!) If there are any adages or existing clichés that could be applied to the original question – “what do people read about online?” – they would be “sex sells”, “celebrity doesn’t sell” and “all you need is love”.

AndAnotherThing’s Top Ten Most Read Articles

1st Sex/Venus/Love 31%
2nd Sex/Mars 20%
3rd Tattoos 9.5%
4th Drunkeness 7%
5th Texting 7%
6th Venus/Love +5%
7th Venus/Love -5%
8th Celebrity/Mercury 1.5%
9th Venus Nature Love Poetry +1%
10th Stupid Rude Inadequate Bosses +1%