December 2012 started out slow, but thanks to the efforts of a great many, it ended up being a great month. Things really got going in the middle of the month when the mass email went out. At the same time, a lot of YWSers went out of their way to get older members back on the site, and I think that had a larger impact. After all, what's better: a massive, impersonal email or a text from a friend?
After the massive email, we had a great radio show with 87 listeners, which was the most for a radio show since the one on YWS' birthday (Nov. 14) in 2010. The latter, though, benefited from being two hours long whereas this past radio show was only a quarter of that.
The following weekend, we had the Holiday Gift Weekend during which nearly 3,000 gifts were given out. That helped to really boost activity, and gave us good momentum to survive what is usually a slow Christmas week.
As it turned out, the Christmas week was only slightly slower than the week previous, but still one of our busiest weeks for the year overall. In fact, Christmas 2012 was our most active Christmas ever. There's usually a sharp decline in activity on that day, but this time there was only a slight dip.
After the Christmas week was over, we held a Review Day that ended up with 549 reviews overall. I think it would've been even higher but we were limited by the number of works available to review. I have no doubt we could've reached 750 if only more literary works were around!
Throughout all this, YWS has been blessed to have a great number of folks who have helped to propel things along. From old members like Firestarter (member #24) and Meshugenah (member #83) to new members like iEuphoria (member #28573) and AriaAdams (member #32542), YWS has so many people who really make this place possible.
But enough of that. Let's read something interesting like statistics!
The Stats
Overview
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Pagviews
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Visits
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Map of visitors
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Top 10 Cities
1. Sydney
2. London
3. Auckland
4. New York City
5. Dubai
6. Chicago
7. Dallas
8. San Juan (PR)
9. Toronto
10. Livermore (UK)
Top 10 Countries
1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. India
6. New Zealand
7. United Arab Emirates
8. Philippines
9. Puerto Rico
10. Ireland
Top 10 States
1. California
2. Texas
3. New York
4. Michigan
5. Pennsylvania
6. Florida
7. Illinois
8. Indiana
9. Maryland
10. New Jersey
Top 5 Browsers
1. Chrome
2. Safari (incl. iOS)
3. Firefox
4. Internet Explorer
5. Android
Top 5 mobile devices
1. iPhone
2. iPad
3. iPod
4. Droid Incredible
5. HTC Evo
All the Apple products are fairly close to one another with over 1,000 visits each. Then there's a sharp drop to the Android devices (the iPod had 1,145 visits versus just 220 for the Droid Incredible).
YWS Specific Stats
Literary comments: 3,214
Reviews: 1,952
Works: 537
Review ratio: 3.64 (good!)
Forum Posts: 4,831
Storybook Posts: 8,409
All posts: 13,240
New members: 275
Total members active in December 2012: 1,137
Note: the new members number only includes those who activated their accounts and it does not include any spambots.
Conclusion
December was in some ways two entirely different months separated by the mass email. Prior to the mass email, pageviews per day averaged about 14,000. After the mass email, pageviews per day averaged about 23,000. With visits, it was 1250 and 1450 respectively.
So, with no change in activity from what we have now, we can expect upwards of 700,000 pageviews and 45,000 visits. But, I think we can do better than that.
January is going to be a very big month. For one, there's always a boost in activity in January. For another, clubs will be coming back, and the Literary Area will receive even more improvements. Also looking at a cool new feature called Achievements. You'll be able to earn achievements for something as small as selecting an avatar to something as large as the most reviews in a given year. They won't be accompanied by points, so they're just something that should be fun to collect (gotta collect 'em all!).
We'll also have a Review Day this month on January 27, and another radio show will be held on either the 20th or 13th.
And there's all the workshops going on in addition to a new mentors group. Plus, it looks like the YWS online magazine, Squills, will be making a return soon (though it probably won't be ready this month).
Lots of stuff to look forward to! 2013 is going to be an amazing year.
