I refuse to name this with a clever Digg pun.
So, a few days ago I noticed a huge spike in my web traffic. According to my web stats the traffic was coming from Digg, but I was unable to find any reference to my site over at digg.com. Now it’s a few days later and all of the search engines have refreshed, so I’ve been able to piece together what happened. Bare in mind, I only have a sketchy grasp of how digg works. If any of you have a correction for me on any of the following information, I’m anxious to hear it.
Someone read “How to Calm a Friend Down“, and liked it enough to post it on digg (my gratitude to that person, whoever they are). 200 or so diggs later I was on the front page. 8 minutes later, my server crashed under the weight of it. In the next 20 minutes or so at least 2, and possibly 3 digg-mirror sites had also crashed. Within 35 minutes of the initial appearance on the front page, my strip was “burried” and was no longer on the front page. I topped out at 283 diggs.
During it’s moment in the sun, my strip garnered 48 comments. They fell into 3 basic categories.
1: Who does this guy look like? (the final consensus was Edward Norton’s character in American History X)
2: This is taking so long to load, it’d better be the best thing ever. (The final consensus was that it was not.)
3: Why are you wasting my time with this crap (The final consensus was that I’m pathetic.)
Does this bother me? A thousand times no! Here’s why. Enough people liked my strip to get it to the front page to begin with. Many of the commenters posted multiple times, so instead of 43 people thinking I’m a moron, it’s more like 35 people. Foremost, those 35 or so people had a really bad experience with my site. My server wasn’t up to the task and people were waiting up to 10 minutes for a single strip to load. When the strip did load, the strip they got wasn’t one of my favorites. Oh, I’m not ashamed of that one or anything, but it might not be the one I’d have aimed a first time reader to.
So the final lesson is this, word is spreading about this comic I do and that is something of a mixed blessing. Also, I should look at other hosting options.
Someone read “How to Calm a Friend Down“, and liked it enough to post it on digg (my gratitude to that person, whoever they are). 200 or so diggs later I was on the front page. 8 minutes later, my server crashed under the weight of it. In the next 20 minutes or so at least 2, and possibly 3 digg-mirror sites had also crashed. Within 35 minutes of the initial appearance on the front page, my strip was “burried” and was no longer on the front page. I topped out at 283 diggs.
During it’s moment in the sun, my strip garnered 48 comments. They fell into 3 basic categories.
1: Who does this guy look like? (the final consensus was Edward Norton’s character in American History X)
2: This is taking so long to load, it’d better be the best thing ever. (The final consensus was that it was not.)
3: Why are you wasting my time with this crap (The final consensus was that I’m pathetic.)
Does this bother me? A thousand times no! Here’s why. Enough people liked my strip to get it to the front page to begin with. Many of the commenters posted multiple times, so instead of 43 people thinking I’m a moron, it’s more like 35 people. Foremost, those 35 or so people had a really bad experience with my site. My server wasn’t up to the task and people were waiting up to 10 minutes for a single strip to load. When the strip did load, the strip they got wasn’t one of my favorites. Oh, I’m not ashamed of that one or anything, but it might not be the one I’d have aimed a first time reader to.
So the final lesson is this, word is spreading about this comic I do and that is something of a mixed blessing. Also, I should look at other hosting options.
posted by Scott Meyer at Thursday, May 17, 2007
5 Comments:
Man, this rocks! Keep it up
I saw your comic from Scott Adam's Dilbert Blog and thought I'd check it out. I've been reading through your archives and really enjoy your work... keep it up and good luck!
I came here from Scott Adams blog and I think the influx of people from there is about to crash your server again.
I really liked your work, but, really, consider getting a better hosting. The "this is taking forever to load, it'd better be the best thing ever" effect really gets in the way of the appreciation after a couple strips.
hell I wish only 35 people thought I was a moron ... PS your funny, keep at it
i've been reading now for about a week (the strips are excellent too, cant remember how i got here tho), especially how you convey the emotion/feelings/crazed-look in such a little change in the mouth or eyebrows.
i'll keep reading anyway! :)
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