Tuesday, January 17, 2006
The Blink of an Eye
"Web users judge sites in the blink of an eye", that's the headline of a Nature.com article. An article with goes on to further state "Potential readers can make snap decisions in just 50 milliseconds." Actually I would disagree that judgments are made in 50 milliseconds (1/20 of a second). I suspect persistence of vision and post processing makes it possible to make decisions on things that only appear for a fraction of a second especially when flashed between blackness to blackness, but that the decision process still takes perhaps 1/2 a second or longer.
You have probably noticed the "Blogger bar" on the top of my blog, most likely you got here by clicking "NEXT BLOG >>" on its right side from another Blogger.com maintained blog. Unlike most however you have chosen to stay on this page long enough to read this far. Most likely 9 out of 10 other click-throughs spent all of about one second deciding BNL isn't what they are looking for in a blog reading experience. While I doubt they made up their minds consciously or unconsciously in the afore mentioned 50 milliseconds, they probably still made up their minds in an incredibly short time.
I don't make this as an accusation of unfairness. I do the same when I'm out blog hopping. A conservative estimate of the number of blogs out there is 50 million. That’s a lot of potential reading. Assuming they all had a NEXT BLOG button, which most don't of course, but assuming they did and assuming the combination of your broadband service, computer, and their servers could dish up a blog every second -- it would still take nearly two years of surfing 24/7 to put your eyeballs on each of them at least once.
So fairly or unfairly ones blog has to have enough aesthetic appeal to get past that fraction of a second judging process to have any chance of the very first sentence of your blog being read at all. 50 million blogs makes for a lot of competition in the effort to grab eyeballs and attract return visitors. Still not all of them are out to get a large readership, but if only 2% were that would still make for 1 million blogs to compete with and carve out an audience.
Why should one care? I think I envy my wife's blogging-philosophy, which is that she writes for herself, alone. She only reluctantly allowed me to publish her blog's address in my sidebar, and then only because the vast majority of American and English speaking readers would be unable to read the original Chinese and be totally confused by the WorldLingo and Google translated versions. Me, I guess I've always been an extrovert. Many people enjoy playing and listening to music; I only really enjoy it when I'm D.J.ing for an appreciative crowd of club goers.
I think my main reason for blogging as an ongoing lesson in writing. Without readers and comments there really aren't any grades.
Probably I have exhausted this subject for now. I know that BNL could benefit from a facelift if it is ever to breakout from the rest of the blog crowd. I know my little gadgets and toys in the sidebar are trivial and childish compared to real games, puzzles, and free applications posted elsewhere on the web by other more capable web designers than I. But it isn't really my aim to be the next Google.com or Yahoo.com. Still I do hope someday for BNL to be recognized by a readership of a few hundred regular visitors as a true Webzine and not just another blog that goes by in a blink.
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1 Comments:
Hey, good post! Let's see why do I still blog? I just love the interaction with others especially since I pretty much lack a social life. In real life though I am an introvert.
But anyway, how's everything going?? Long time no see. Hope life's been good to you. Take care! :)
By lotus, at February 12, 2006
