Personal Statistics from 3 Months of Internet Reading
In the interests of cool data, I’ve collected information about every single piece of content I read on the internet (and some of the videos too). I’m able to dive into this collection to find out all sorts of interesting metrics. Here’s a few stats from everything I’ve read in the past three months.
Internet reading accomplished vs goals:
Stories Read / Stories Queued To Read
August:
438 / 536 ( 81% completed )
July:
493 / 544 ( 90% completed )
June:
400 / 546 ( 73% completed )
Notes: not all stories read made it to my reading queue before being read except for in August. All counts are for only within those months. Some things from previous months may have been read in the following months.
Most popular stories shared on Facebook (according to Google Analytics):
August: “Is There Any Right Way to Reject a Guy? — The Cut” ( http://chronoto.pe/2015/08/18/is-there-any-right-way-to-reject-a-guy-the-cut/ )
July: “Arizona Drug Tested Welfare Recipients — Here Are the Shocking Results” ( http://chronoto.pe/2015/07/22/arizona-drug-tested-welfare-recipients-here-are-the-shocking-results/ )
June: “Investigators Say Whole Foods Has Been Ripping Us Off More Than We Realized: Gothamist” ( http://chronoto.pe/2015/06/24/investigators-say-whole-foods-has-been-ripping-us-off-more-than-we-realized-gothamist/ )
Author data:
August marked the first month since I started tracking (in January) where the algorithmically guessed gender of authors read was more women than men (1041 women over 1527 articles vs 988 men over 1458 articles).
In August:
383 authors over 438 articles. 346 authors archived only once. 37 authors archived more than once. 11 authors archived more than twice.
184 authors are probably women, writing 208 articles. 167 authors are probably men, writing 190 articles. 32 authors can’t have their gender algorithmically determined, writing 40 articles.
In July:
435 authors over 493 articles. 397 authors archived only once. 38 authors archived more than once. 12 authors archived more than twice.
203 authors are probably women, writing 230 articles. 202 authors are probably men, writing 229 articles. 30 authors can’t have their gender algorithmically determined, writing 34 articles.
In June:
328 authors over 400 articles. 296 authors archived only once. 32 authors archived more than once. 14 authors archived more than twice.
155 authors are probably women, writing 189 articles. 142 authors are probably men, writing 174 articles. 31 authors can’t have their gender algorithmically determined, writing 37 articles.
Notes: The gender calculation algorithm is far from perfect, but tweaks continue. It is unlikely that it will ever be perfect.
Total words read:
August: 443,263
July: 498,079
June: 344,397
Top Sources by month:
August:
The New York Times: 24
Gawker: 21
Washington Post: 17
YouTube: 15
Medium: 14
io9: 14
Salon: 13
Vox: 11
Huffington Post: 11
Buzzfeed: 10
July:
io9: 17
The New York Times: 16
YouTube: 14
The Guardian: 13
Washington Post: 13
Gawker: 10
BuzzFeed: 10
Medium: 10
The Verge: 9
Huffington Post: 9
June:
io9: 22
The New York Times: 19
Zero Hedge: 18
Kotaku: 12
Wonkette: 12
Salon: 12
Gawker: 12
Vox: 10
Washington Post: 8
Daily Dot: 8
Statistics collected with: PressForward, some hacking on PressForward Stats and WordPress. Instapaper, Pinboard.in and Google Analytics helped.
