If you are an obsessive follower of statistics you might notice that you could join the four hundred and ninety people who hang on every word I write on this blog.
That’s right. I have four hundred and ninety subscribers. WordPress proudly tells all my readers that they can “Join 490 other followers” in subscribing to my every update.
Only thing is … it’s a cheat.
A week ago I had 11 subscribers (all of whom I love very dearly indeed, not least because they give me validation). So where did the jump come from?
Wellll, this new template has a Publicise option which auto-posts to Twitter when a new post goes live. Which is a feature that I love dearly – especially when I remember to edit what it’s going to say.
But the BEST PART of doing that is that it turns out that since I turned that on, WordPress now automatically counts EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY TWITTER FOLLOWERS as a subscriber to my blog. So instead of 11 readers (which is not a very big number even though as mentioned I love you all dearly) I have a veritable horde of readers. Nearly three and a half gross of you.
I wonder what would happen if I connected it to Facebook as well.
Gerald McD
April 21, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Hyper-geometric growth!
Melissa
April 23, 2012 at 3:00 am
It floored me until I realised what was going on.
auntiejustine
April 22, 2012 at 10:00 am
Very happy to be one of the treasured 11, and now wow, 409. Wondering what number I am….As late twitter follower have I gone from say 4 to 408. Never mind doesn’t matter because I am loved dearly whatever my number:)
Melissa
April 23, 2012 at 2:59 am
You’ll always be one of the Treasured Eleven dear 🙂
Mike
April 23, 2012 at 1:59 am
I subscribe via google reader which I’m sure isn’t counted.
Melissa
April 23, 2012 at 3:00 am
Yeah – they haven’t found a way to measure that yet. But thanks for reading 🙂
Jonathan O'Donnell
April 23, 2012 at 10:22 am
At this rate, you will have more people following you than actually exist on Earth by 11:42 am, Tuesday 27 June, 2036.
Perhaps by then we will have taught other species to Tweet, so the numbers will still add up.
Melissa
April 23, 2012 at 12:48 pm
I’ll start with birds. You can have cats. Race you!
Jonathan O'Donnell
April 25, 2012 at 11:26 am
My cats will eat your birds for breakfast!
Melissa
April 25, 2012 at 9:35 pm
And yet my birds will Tweet effortlessly as they are massacred.
yellekau
April 23, 2012 at 12:05 pm
As one of the anonymous masses that reads via Google reader I take umbrage at the rampant elitism that the WordPress followers are involved in 🙂