Thanks for voting yesterday in my readership survey - more than 800 of you were kind enough to take part! Now I know how my readership has changed over thelasteightyears, but also how very similar it is. One thing that hasn't changed, according to the 2012 survey results, is that the typical diamond geezer reader is still a 30-something male from the London area. Hello if that's you. And here are those results in a little more detail.
Male or female?
male (638)
82%
female (144)
18%
I'm losing the ladies. In every previous survey I've had about three male readers to every female, but now it's more than four. I guess the content of my writing must have subtly shifted, and I'm now unintentionally frightening (or boring) many of my former female readers away. Sorry ladies, I'll try not to lose any more of you.
Age
<20 (7)
1%
20s (139)
17%
30s (244)
30%
40s (179)
22%
50s (125)
16%
60+ (109)
14%
And I'm slowly haemorrhaging the younger audience too. My highest readership has always been amongst 30-somethings, and still is. But the 40-somethings have leapfrogged the 20-somethings, and the 50-somethings are catching up fast. We're all getting older, I know, and maybe this upward shift merely reflects the passing of time. Or maybe blogging's a bit old school for the younger generation, who prefer regular status updates to daily thousand word essays.
Where do you live? (pick one)
London (428)
53%
England (212)
26%
UK (23)
3%
Europe (51)
6%
World (88)
11%
These proportions are incredibly similar to those seen two years and four years ago. Just over half of my readership comes from London - the city I write about approximately half of the time. Another quarter are from England, probably with a disproportionate amount from the Home Counties. But one in six are still from outside the UK, so it can't only be my reports from Mile End and Edmonton which keep them coming back. It's lucky I write about other stuff and other places too. Half London, half not - that's a good balance, and I shall aim to maintain it.
How often do you read diamond geezer?
daily (538)
67%
often (235)
29%
occasionally (24)
3%
first visit (5)
1%
You're getting more regular. Back in 2004 only half of you came back once a day, and now it's more than two thirds. That's comforting, because I do try very hard to post something every day for you to read. Meanwhile the proportion of readers visiting only occasionally has plummeted - it's all or nothing these days. And hardly anybody lands on diamond geezer for the first time any more, at least not on the home page where the poll was, but a special hello to the five of you who did.
When was your first visit to diamond geezer?
2002/03/04 (103)
13%
2005/06 (135)
17%
2007/8 (194)
24%
2009/10 (230)
29%
2011/12 (140)
17%
This graph celebrates the longevity of diamond geezer's readers. About 30% of you claim to have been reading for more than five years, with more and more of you joining in as successive years have passed. But nearly half of you arrived as recently as 2009 or later, which suggests that people are stumbling in here all the time. Thanks to you all for sticking around, however long it's been.
How do you read diamond geezer?
web browser (519)
65%
RSS reader (239)
30%
mobile browser (44)
5%
This is my attempt to determine how many people are reading my posts somewhere that isn't my blog. The results are slightly flawed because yesterday's vote wasn't clickable in certain feed readers so the figures may be an underestimate. But it sounds like RSS is still adding at least 50% to my readership, just as it was two years ago. And mobile readership may still be low but it's on a steep upward climb - last time less than ten such readers, this time more than forty.
Do you have your own blog?
yes (170)
21%
no (636)
79%
The proportion of readers with their own blog drops noticeably every time I carry out this survey. Back in 2004 more than half of you claimed to be blogging, but that proportion's now nearer one fifth. It sounds like a substantial number of you have given up on producing original content and now merely react to what others have written (via Twitter, Facebook etc). But it's reassuring to know that blogging isn't quite dead yet, and I still have competition from at least 170 of you. I wonder how different things will look by the first week of 2014...
