[FM Discuss] Stats for downloads

[David Farning]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 5:03 PM, adam hyde <adam at flossmanuals.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-09-28 at 16:55 -0500, David Farning wrote:
>
>> Yes, bad does seem a bit strong.  On the other hand download metric
>> are very useful to projects.
>>
>> Sugar Labs and OLPC have specifically decided to host on FM in order
>> to drive traffic to the FM site and make people aware of the good
>> things happening in the free software ecosystem.
>>
>> Would it be possible implement an apache log parser to determine
>> download statistics and make them available to manual maintainers?
>>
>
> I dont want FM to be run by statistics. I want us to generate books
> based on what we want to write, not using stats to steer the ship.
>
> As I see it, showing a funder a quality well written manual that you
> have produced in 5 days is a pretty good argument to doing it again. if
> it needs backing up, get testimonials...any thoughts on this?

Having statistic is orthogonal to steering the ship.  Steering happens
at a mission, vision, and values level.  Stats provide information
about what we are doing operationally to achieve our mission, vision,
and values.

For example, when we do a media push, I track at our download stats,
website hits, and commit numbers.  I look at overall size of the media
bump and if there is any change is growth rates before and after the
media event.

When talking to potential partners, they like to hear numbers.  One of
their favorites is the fact that we have shipped over 600,000
activities from http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/ over the
last 4 months.  Combined with a 25% month to month growth rate, we are
starting to look at numbers which cause people to sit up and listen.

Numbers don't steer the boat, but they help trim the sails to make the
most out of the prevailing winds.

I'll see your 'steering the ship' analogy and raise you one 'trim the
sails' analogy:)

david


>> david
>>
>> > you are also more than welcome to host the pdf on your own site and
>> > record the downloads there and use any tracking program you think is
>> > appropriate
>> >
>> >
>> > adam
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> I do think that knowing how many downloads per day/week/month and what
>> >> sections of a book are most viewed are quite basic and should be
>> >> provided. Integrating with an online package like google analytics or
>> >> awstats cannot be too hard. We'd be happy to help install and maintain
>> >> this package on the server
>> >>
>> >> lobo
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> adam hyde wrote:
>> >> > hey
>> >> >
>> >> > ah stats stats...i think civicrm is about 500 downloads of the pdf a
>> >> > month
>> >> >
>> >> > i cant tell u how many have read the pages (page views) since we dont
>> >> > get that sort of info. i would estimate that a small minority of the
>> >> > readers download the pdf, but what % i have no idea...
>> >> >
>> >> > adam
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > On Mon, 2009-09-28 at 18:13 +0100, Michael McAndrew wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> Hello people,
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I'm looking at putting together download and sales stats for the
>> >> >> CiviCRM manual for a funding application.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I've found the following stats on lulu...
>> >> >>
>> >> >> In "All-Time Revenue" under the "Total content tab", I found
>> >> >>
>> >> >> CiviCRM Print - 26 sales
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Under the "Total zero creator revenues" tab I found
>> >> >>
>> >> >> CiviCRM Print - 13
>> >> >> CiviCRM Download - 122
>> >> >>
>> >> >> So I am thinking that there have been 39 paper copies ordered and 122
>> >> >> downloads from Lulu - can anyone confirm this?
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Can I also get download stats from flossmanuals.net?
>> >> >>
>> >> >> PS.  Would be great if you could copy in lobo (see the to: line) in
>> >> >> any replies to this email
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Thanks,
>> >> >> Michael
>> >> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> >> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
>> >> >>
>> >>
>> > --
>> > Adam Hyde
>> > Founder FLOSS Manuals
>> > German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
>> > Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
>> > irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals
>> >
>> > "Free manuals for free software"
>> > http://www.flossmanuals.net/about
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> _______________________________________________
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> --
> Adam Hyde
> Founder FLOSS Manuals
> German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
> Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
> irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals
>
> "Free manuals for free software"
> http://www.flossmanuals.net/about
>
>
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