Just wanted to quickly note these two completely interrelated datapoints vis a vis our use of blogs, for my amusement if nothing else.
- First, a follow up on the respect accorded to frequent RedMonk commenter – and ODF TC member, Gary Edwards. While take a quick breeze through some of our traffic numbers for the day, I noticed a few hundred hits from /. What were the /. folks coming to us for? Not my analysis, but Gary’s. See the comment here. The fact of the matter is that by conducting research in the open, you have the opportunity to benefit from the viewpoints of participants on all sides. And there’s no clearer example of that than Gary.
- Second, and most amusingly, I’m not the only one who realizes this. The inset screenshot – which is likely to be illegible unless you click through – was grabbed off Statcounter. While I’ve cropped it so as to shield the parties in question, it highlights a particular visit to our site via Google from one of our very large competitors. The search query: “IBM’s, “long term strategy”, OSS. Punch that in and the eighth result should be this site, and a particularly insightful comment from Gary. Forget the fact that we’re turning up in that query originating from a massive competitor, I simply can’t get enough of the fact that it directs back to a commenter’s contribution. Open source analysis, anyone?
Anyway, I just love it when people tell me we’re wasting our time with this “blogging thing,” – it’s good for a chuckle. Thanks again to Gary and all of our other intelligent commenters; you really do make this place smarter, and keep all the credit in the bargain 😉
