“The Bear” on Business

This is a display of HubSpot’s Website Grader.   Hubspot says its purpose is to grade websites based on comparisons to other sites in terms of marketing effectiveness.  The comparison blogs are ones I picked.  Though I have never been a competitve guy, I thought I’d see how bearonbusiness performs relative to managedvideoblog, telecosm, businesstoolsblog, and telecomramblings.  I’ll post updates once a month–unless of course I fall behind any of these rivals.

Google Page Rank: Googles grade for websites; highest is 10; based on link structure of the web

Traffic Rank: Uses Alexa to measure the approximate traffic for millions of sites on the Internet

Blog Rank: Uses Technorati to measure the popularity of a given website as compared to all other sites that have been submitted to its system

Inbound Links: One of the most important measures for a website is how many other sites are linking to it.  The more links the better

Del.icio.us Bookmarks:  Web-based bookmarking site; users save their bookmarks on the website so they can access them from any browser

Google Indexed Pages: Measures the approximate number of pages on the site that have been stored in the Google index.  The Google web crawler will visit the website periodically and look for new content and store it in its index.  Generally, the more pages a website has within the Google cache, the better

…thanks to Brad Feld.

June turned out the highest numbers to date for the blog:  4,230 unique visitors (3,010 in May), 8,820 visits (7,204 in May), 40,936 pages (35,312 in May).

On June 12th, Brad Feld wrote “The Bear Blogs” about my relatively recent entry into the blogosphere (Brad has been blogging since May 2004) which spurred the highest single day visits at 599!  The high in May was what I termed a “whopping 379″, so you can imagine my suprise when we hit nearly 600 visits in ONE day!  We topped the May high 4 times in the month of June, and although I thought 379 would be the new high for quite sometime, I really do think 599 will be the number to beat for months to come. 

The average from the feedburner is now up to 202 with a high in June of 262 in a single day.

Brad Feld kindly posted  a peice on Bearonbusiness.com.  I appreciate that, but I always pictured myself as a Grizzly Bear,not a Polar Beer.  Thanks also Brad for referencing Envysion’s blog www.managedvideoblog.com. 

I suspect many bearonbusiness readers know who Brad is and are familiar with his blog.  Brad is a very successful venture capitalist…his expertise is in Web 2.0 applications (my summary, not his).  He recently launched a new fund called Foundry and as such is the most active VC in Colorado.  Prior to Foundry, Brad was one of the main partners at Mobius.  On top of his institutional investments, he has been an angel investor in several ventures.

Brad’s blog–www.feld.com–is among the most followed blogs on the Internet.  Through Feld Thoughts, Brad has been one of my inspirations for bearonbusiness.  Thanks Brad.

May was BearOnBusiness’s 7th month.  Each month traffic has grown and May was no exception.   A new blog, Telecom Ramblings, helped my numbers–thanks Rob Powell; I’m enjoying your blog.

May had 3,010 unique subscribers, up 2,556 in April.  Total visits were 7,204, which compares to 6,363 the prior month.  The 35,312 total pages viewed were just a bit better than the 33,697 pages viewed in April. 

In April, 301 visits was the highest in a single day.  May topped this number four times.  The new high was a whopping 379.  My guess is this number holds up for a while.

Additional users come in through readers.  Feeder Burner estimated a peak of 182 readers in a day; this is up from a 140 peak in April.

The highlight of the month was hearing from a Kevin Nelson, a friend I grew up with in Glenwood.  It was good catching up.

BearOnBusiness.com began in November. Traffic has grown every month since.  April, thanks in part to my spirited debate with Ike Elliot and well as Sandi Mays’ creative artwork and other support, set new highs across the board.  I look at the usage numbers nearly every day.   Do you think I need to get a life?  April’s unique visitors was 2,556, up from 1,989 in March.   Total visits were 6,363 compared to 4,972 last month.  33,697 pages were viewed, well above the 26,714 in March.  The previous single day high for visitors was 274 on February 11^th.  Daily visits exceed 274 six times in April, with a new best established at 301 on April 22^nd.Additional users come in through subscriptions, though it is hard to know how much double counting takes place.  Feeder Burner peaked at 140 readers, which likely means that daily viewership might have reached around 400 in total.  Subscribing to blogs is a great way to stay tuned into industry dynamics.I still don’t get a lot of comments on the blog, and that is a bit disappointing.  I do get a lot of emails and verbal feedback.  This is very helpful.  I also heard from a couple old industry friends who stumbled across the blog—it was fun to reconnect.I appreciate the continued support. 

BearOnBusiness.com began in November. I was pleased with the first month’s traffic: in each of December, January and February, traffic to the site grew. I am pleased to report that March established new highs. 

In March, BearOnBusiness.com had 1,989 unique visitors, up about 22% from the 1,625 unique visitors in February. Total visits were 4,972, up roughly 26% from the 3,959 visits in Febrary. 26,714 pages were viewed, slightly above the 25,379 as in February.  I’m not sure how to interpret this, as I’d think the growing archive would lead to more page views. 

On February 11th, BearOnBusiness.com peaked and established a new personal best of 274 unique visitors in a single day. I commented last month that this seemed like an anomaly, as the 2nd highest was only 202. 

February’s 274 remains the mark to beat. However, we had several days in the 200’s: 213, 219, 220, 221, 224, and 239. Whether or not the 274 in February was a fluke, I don’t think it will hold up for long. 

Feedback is helpful. It gives me the energy to keep writing and it provides ideas. Please send emails my way or, for those I know, conversation about what you’d like to see would be good. Guest bloggers are welcome—if you’d like to provide a post, please let me know. I love to see comments on the blog so don’t hestitate to comment as well.

Thanks for your continued readership. It is appreciated.

(Mark Cuban phone call continues on Monday.) 

BearonBusiness.com began in November. The first month’s traffic was solid, and both December and January were marked with steady growth. February was BearonBusiness.com’s fourth month and, from a viewership perspective, set high-water marks across the board. 

In February, BearonBusiness.com had 1,625 unique visitors; this is more than 50% higher than December. Total visits were 3,959; 25,379 pages were viewed.

BearonBusiness.com also established a new personal best for number of unique visitors in a single day–with 274 visitors to the site on February 11th. The second highest viewership day was 202, so perhaps the 274 was a fluke. Both the 202 and the 274 came at the culmination of the Birth of the Softswitch string. Click here for the first installment of the story if you didn’t catch it the first time.

I am a little concerned about whether March will top the February numbers. The next two weeks of posts are fun and entertaining, so please spread the word a bit. 

What keeps me writing is the number of comments. Lots of people–many I have never met–share with me words of encouragement. Thanks for sharing the feedback and for reading BearonBusiness.com.

January was BearonBusiness’ third month.  I hope you are finding the posts interesting, helpful and entertaining.

During January, BearonBusiness has had 1,063 unique visitors; this is more than 50% higher than December. Total visits were 3,395 and 22,429 pages were viewed.

BearonBusiness also established a new high water mark for number of unique visitors in a single day–on January 24th, 168 visitors took a look. 

I get quite a bit of verbal feedback from people. Though I get several emails, it is far fewer than I would expect. I am surprised I don’t see all that many comments on the site. Please post them. Also, I’d appreciate any suggestions about the site or its content.

I am finding the blog is a great way of communicating, particularly with employees and with others in the telecom/Internet industry. It is also a great way to capture memories. If our paths crossed before–and a memorable story has stuck with you–ping me; remind me of it. Maybe it will be a good one to capture in the blog. 

Thank you for reading the blog.  

December was BearonBusiness’ second month. I’m not burned out yet, and I still have lots of topics I want to write about. I hope you are finding them interesting and helpful.

During December, BearonBusiness has had 663 unique visitors, more than 50% higher than November. Total visits were 3,122, almost double the November number. At 36,364, the number of pages viewed were over triple the November number. We established a new high water mark for number of unique visitors in a single day–on December 11th, we had 148 visitors.

I get a fair amount of verbal feedback from people I know, but I don’t get a lot of suggestions via emails or comments.  Please send them.  I’d also like to share other personal stories about what happened in the boom and meltdown–so please provide me some stories, and I will see if I can put together an interesting blog post on them.

I try to keep the blog geared toward people throughout the telecom and Internet infrastructure industries. Though not the original intention, the blog is proving to be a good vehicle for communicating with Zayo and Envysion employees (and prospective employees). Hopefully I am striking a good balance between these multiple audiences.

Thank you for reading the blog.   Have a great 2008.

November was BearonBusiness’ inaugural month. I have enjoyed capturing my thoughts and stories–I hope you are finding them interesting and helpful.

During the first month, BearonBusiness has had 401 unique visitors and 1,686 visits in total. 10,380 pages were viewed. The last day of the month had 135 visits. It is fun to watch these stats. 

I encourage you to send me emails with questions or suggestions.