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Better Living Through Data Mining: Bitmob Facts and Figures

Andrewh
Friday, June 04, 2010

Have you ever wondered what actually goes on behind the curtain at Bitmob? We are working very, very hard. How hard? Here are some fun facts taken from our backend (hi-oh!) that should give you some hint of what goes into running a site like Bitmob.


Top Stories

-- Aaron Thomas has four of the top five most-viewed articles and five of the top 10. Those 5 articles have combined for more than 289,000 hits.

Top Ten Bitmob Stories

-- Bitmob's most-viewed article, by Aaron of course, was linked from the front page but never actually promoted.

-- Two community submissions are in the top 10 most-viewed articles: Of Video Games and Board Games by Rob Savillo (who wasn't staff when the article was posted) and Why are Fighting Game Movies so Bad? by Armando Filgueiras Jr. Armando's piece also holds the record for most hits by a community story never to be promoted to the front page.

-- Do you think there are too many top "X" lists? Only 11 are in the top 100.

-- The Super Street Fighter 4 profiles had plenty of views. Only one isn't in the top 100. That profile? Hakan. Maybe he's too greasy for most people's tastes.

Hit the jump for more than you ever wanted to know about Bitmob.

 

 


Staff Behavior

Which co-founder has written more articles? It should be no surprise that it's Dan "Shoe" Hsu. He's a completionist and achievement whore. [Those numbers would be a lot closer if you counted community posts we've edited and promoted! -Demian]

Co-founders

Which editors have written the most articles?

Editors

With all that in mind, just who is doing all the work? Let's see what our staff writers have been up to.

Staff Writers

Obviously, we have to crown Alejandro Quan-Madrid as King of Bitmob with Jasmine Rea as his queen. It's a good thing Hsu doesn't have more posts. That would have been awkward!

Of the above staff, 10 were originally community members. They are Brett Bates, James DeRosa, Jay Henningsen, Rob Savillo, Jasmine Rea, Omar Yusuf, Omri Petitte, Alejandro Quan-Madrid, Mike Minotti, and me, Andrew Hiscock. That's 62% of Bitmob's editorial and writing staff.


Hit page 2 for more facts, including just how many articles make it to the front page!

 
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Comments (22)
Default_picture
June 04, 2010

Thanks for posting these numbers. I wish the game industry would do the same.

Shoe_headshot_-_square
June 04, 2010

Looking at that picture of Aaron, I think we need to beat him up.

Brett_new_profile
June 04, 2010

Go #3! Great number-crunching, Andrew.

Img_1019
June 04, 2010

Wait, why do I need to get beaten up? Is it for being too awesome? Guilty.

Alexemmy
June 04, 2010

If all the shit you give to people on the Mobcast (Shanker, Brett, Shoe) didn't already seal it, that picture has officially made you the most awesome staff member of them all, Aaron.

Oh, and Andrew? Nerd! Why don't you use your calculator to calculate a comeback to that, dorkus maximus!

Img_1019
June 04, 2010

You tell'em, Alex!

Default_picture
June 04, 2010

"I think A.J. is cheating with the period in his name"

You're goddamn right he is!

:P

Default_picture
June 04, 2010

I always knew I was awesome. 

Mikeshadesbitmob0611
June 04, 2010

So, if you post an article, you have a 50/50 chance of it making it to the front page?

Assassin_shot_edited_small_cropped
June 04, 2010

Looks more like 40/60 to me, and the odds are probably getting worse as the number of articles submitted continues to grow. Of course, they don't choose pieces at random, so it should be taken as a very weak indicator.

I'm curious about stats for the most prolific editor (ie. who has promoted the most articles to the front page), although I'm guessing that's a little harder to track.

Img_20100902_162803
June 04, 2010

Awesome feature, but I would love to know more about the community writers.

Jason_wilson
June 04, 2010

@Richard One way of tracking it is seeing which editor has written the fewest posts. That could indicate who's posting the most community articles. 

Lance_darnell
June 05, 2010

I really enjoyed this, and no one is ever going to catch Aaron!

Andrewh
June 05, 2010

@ Juan, I'll see what I can do for Part 2

Twitpic
June 05, 2010

I remember Aaron's God of War article. It was Bitmob Game Night with Uncharted 2, the article went up and Dan was informed the site was down. It was Aaron's high-res screenshots that did the trick.

Mikeshadesbitmob0611
June 05, 2010

@Richard I would bet it's James. His name is on everything! He's like my biggest fan.

37893_1338936035999_1309080061_30825631_6290042_n
June 06, 2010

Oh cool! I was hoping data like this might come out sometime. I had some ideas for other stats I'd like to see if you had the data for them:

1. What is the best time to post an article (maybe you could cross-reference posting times with highest-viewed articles.)

2. What percentage of community stories are promoted (you included ones that are promoted by default in your graph. The ones submitted by editors.)

3. What is the mean, median and mode for views of articles? And for comments?

4. Which top 100 article has the most words? The least words?

 

Just some things I'd be interested to see. Some are probably impossible from the data to which you have access.

Default_picture
June 06, 2010

I love these type of articles. Numbers are fun!

Default_picture
June 08, 2010

I always wondered how Bitmob got along and here it is! The site is doing well!

Brett_new_profile
June 08, 2010

Facts and figures update: Matthew Orona's "My Four-Year-Old Son Plays Grand Theft Auto" just surpassed Rob's article as the most-viewed community submission. Congrats to Matthew!

Andrewh
June 08, 2010

Sounds like its time for an all new all-time top ten list.

Headshot
June 08, 2010

I'm speechless. I still can't believe all the attention my article has been receiving. And I was just wondering how it was doing compared to others.

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