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11/04/2010 07:19:03 PM · #1 |
Per my thought in this thread, I compiled some statistics for participation that I think tell an interesting story. Here they are:
   
Each plot shows the value of a participation statistic for each calendar quarter, from 2002-Q1 through 2010-Q3. They should pretty much be self explanatory. One thing that I found interesting was that among users who participated in any given quarter, the average number of entries per quarter has remained almost constant over most of the life of the site. The number of participating users per quarter has, however varied dramatically over this time, as has the total number of images submitted in any given quarter.
Edited because I obviously cannot type or proof-read :-P
Message edited by author 2010-11-04 19:35:23. |
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11/04/2010 07:25:51 PM · #2 |
Well, that's kind of dismaying...
R. |
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11/04/2010 07:34:24 PM · #3 |
Looks like the decline started about the third quarter 2007. About the time I joined. I guess drove them off.
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11/04/2010 07:39:07 PM · #4 |
Is there an overall membership chart? With the number of DSLR acquisitions that should be going up.
Immediately noticeable are the two participation spikes from the DPL. Thank Jehovah I'm not in marketing anymore, but if I were... |
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11/04/2010 08:03:13 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by bohemka:
Is there an overall membership chart? With the number of DSLR acquisitions that should be going up. |
Unfortunately it's not possible (for me) to track membership over time post-hoc. It's *really* easy to find out what it is today; just go to Community>Photographer Profiles, select User Type "Member" and click Search. Don't fill in any other information. The page you get will show all current paid members, with the total number shown above the upper right corner of the title block of the table.
If I had been really smart, I would have recorded it at intervals over the years, once I noticed it was no longer going up :-P
My recollection is that we hit a high of about 3000 members in 2007, and it has been steadily downhill since then, to 1674 today. FWIW, it has been pretty stable the past few months. We can only hope that continues, because we cannot afford to lose more members. |
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11/05/2010 01:01:39 AM · #6 |
Certainly challenge participation is one measure of activity.
Can you get at forum stats and look at threads created; min, avg and max thread length; unique thread participants. That would tell another part of the story. |
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11/05/2010 01:17:29 AM · #7 |
As a new member, let me tell you how I happened upon DPC. I was searching google for tutorials for photoshop, and one I stumbled across made a vague reference to DPC. The picture she was using as an example was from DPC and it had a link. I clicked on the picture because I wanted to see the full sized image and the link brought me to this site. I was excited to find it. As a new photographer this was just the sort of site I was looking for.
The whole point to my story is this: why is DPC not on facebook? Why did it take me so long to find? I have done many searches on google for tutorials, it seems DPC should pop up occasionally when I do them. It never did. I am not a member of twitter but I know lots of websites like this are also on twitter. It seems DPC needs to try to target young or new photographers like myself, if it wants to keep its memberships up.
Just a thought. |
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11/05/2010 01:19:01 AM · #8 |
| I forgot to mention. I think the interest in websites like this is still out there. DPC just needs to get the word out better. |
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11/05/2010 01:53:06 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
My recollection is that we hit a high of about 3000 members in 2007, and it has been steadily downhill since then, to 1674 today. |
So, there are 1674 paid members and what, maybe 2-3 times that many registered users that actually participate in the site? That still leaves us with something like 83,567 ghost accounts. Apparently, thousands upon thousands of people only show up to vote in challenges and select favorites. I wonder if... nah, I'm sure that only Rikki would stoop to something that low. ;)
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11/05/2010 02:33:46 AM · #10 |
Originally posted by Mick:
Originally posted by kirbic:
My recollection is that we hit a high of about 3000 members in 2007, and it has been steadily downhill since then, to 1674 today. |
So, there are 1674 paid members and what, maybe 2-3 times that many registered users that actually participate in the site? That still leaves us with something like 83,567 ghost accounts. Apparently, thousands upon thousands of people only show up to vote in challenges and select favorites. I wonder if... nah, I'm sure that only Rikki would stoop to something that low. ;) |
I think probably most of the "ghost" accounts are people who joined with the intention of participating (and, in some cases like mine, participated heavily for a while) and then just wandered off, lost interest, got turned off by a low score, found they didn't have time, felt like they were on the outside looking in, had less time for photography than they once did, etc. There are dozens of reasons why people stop participating in something that they thought they'd always do.
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11/05/2010 03:14:43 AM · #11 |
| I guess the economy slowed down here a bit too. Cutting back on "luxury" items like website membership or new equipment purchases which would lead to more excitment for wanting to share pictures taken with them. |
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11/05/2010 04:13:49 AM · #12 |
My own analysis also shows a disturbing trend.
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11/05/2010 05:22:42 AM · #13 |
| Interesting to see a small peak in zilla action at the time of the DPL... but overall the decrease in sightings is a bad sign for the site... |
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11/05/2010 06:28:41 AM · #14 |
Originally posted by FrankRobinson:
Interesting to see a small peak in zilla action at the time of the DPL... but overall the decrease in sightings is a bad sign for the site... |
Well, I admit I made up all the data. But that doesn't make it any less alarming.
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11/05/2010 07:00:07 AM · #15 |
Originally posted by Art Roflmao:
Originally posted by FrankRobinson:
Interesting to see a small peak in zilla action at the time of the DPL... but overall the decrease in sightings is a bad sign for the site... |
Well, I admit I made up all the data. But that doesn't make it any less alarming.
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Can you light a fire under Drew and Langdon's ar*e to get this site to the level it should be at please? |
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11/05/2010 08:47:11 AM · #16 |
Originally posted by Silent-Shooter:
Can you light a fire under Drew and Langdon's ar*e to get this site to the level it should be at please? |
Why is it their job? If we want more participation on this site, we as the invested members should do our part. I've been preaching the good word. I have a few friends and acquaintances that have joined. Several are active at the time, some have only signed up and lurked a little. biggest reasons quoted are the intimidation factor and lack of time to shoot for a specific challenge in any given week.
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11/05/2010 08:54:12 AM · #17 |
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
Originally posted by Silent-Shooter:
Can you light a fire under Drew and Langdon's ar*e to get this site to the level it should be at please? |
Why is it their job? If we want more participation on this site, we as the invested members should do our part. I've been preaching the good word. I have a few friends and acquaintances that have joined. Several are active at the time, some have only signed up and lurked a little. biggest reasons quoted are the intimidation factor and lack of time to shoot for a specific challenge in any given week. |
I beg to differ about it being our responsibility to find new members. This is a business and why should I make this business grow if I'm not a stockholder like yourself? ;) Actually, I like it how it is. More doesn't necessarily mean better. Unless, again, you own stock in DPC. ;p |
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11/05/2010 08:58:00 AM · #18 |
Originally posted by Jac:
This is a business and why should I make this business grow if I'm not a stockholder like yourself? ;) |
My impression is that it is NOT a business. It's an amusing pastime that Drew and Langdon started to better their own photography skills and it acquired a life of it's own. By invested, I didn't mean it in the normal wall streety definition of the word.
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11/05/2010 09:05:35 AM · #19 |
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11/05/2010 09:13:37 AM · #20 |
I don't see the graph for the total troll voters .. HA!
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11/05/2010 09:30:34 AM · #21 |
Originally posted by Jac:
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
Originally posted by Silent-Shooter:
Can you light a fire under Drew and Langdon's ar*e to get this site to the level it should be at please? |
Why is it their job? If we want more participation on this site, we as the invested members should do our part. I've been preaching the good word. I have a few friends and acquaintances that have joined. Several are active at the time, some have only signed up and lurked a little. biggest reasons quoted are the intimidation factor and lack of time to shoot for a specific challenge in any given week. |
I beg to differ about it being our responsibility to find new members. This is a business and why should I make this business grow if I'm not a stockholder like yourself? ;) Actually, I like it how it is. More doesn't necessarily mean better. Unless, again, you own stock in DPC. ;p |
I think it is up to both parties - Shareholders and members. Shareholders should advertise to some extent I think so that we can keep bringing in new people and fresh ideas so it doesnt go stale and members should encourage others to join and enjoy the vibe here.
I have done my fair share of spreading the DPC gospel. Got a few peopple to sign up but most have not been actively involved other than voting on some challenges. They seem scared (I guess) to get a bad score which I understand... but I mean come on, I had some pretty horrific first entries but I feel that I have improved steadily over the year and now feel more compelled to enter some more challenging challenges.
Just MHO |
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11/05/2010 09:37:25 AM · #22 |
Ah, nevermind, misread your post
Message edited by author 2010-11-05 09:37:46. |
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11/05/2010 09:46:41 AM · #23 |
Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:
Originally posted by Jac:
This is a business and why should I make this business grow if I'm not a stockholder like yourself? ;) |
My impression is that it is NOT a business. It's an amusing pastime that Drew and Langdon started to better their own photography skills and it acquired a life of it's own. By invested, I didn't mean it in the normal wall streety definition of the word. |
Well...there is pay per membership and there is a profit or a loss in any given quarter. Sounds like a business to me. While the intent may have been started to improve photography as with a lot of hobbies it turned into a business. It is mostly their job to improve site performance if (and it's a big IF) they want more participation and profit. If they don't, then they don't have to more participation. As users, the only benefit we get from increasing partipation is either more frustration or having more friends to compete with, but there really is no true benefit for me to go out and have friends join and increasing the sites profits. In fact it may be detrimental...too many participants means more site upkeep, which leads to higher membership rates.
As for the actual data, I read that alot different than some of you. I don't see a steady trend. I saw a dramatic rise in participation and challenge entries from 2002 through 2007 which one could assume was as the site grew and everyone was still getting to know eacother...and then from 2007 there has been a downward trend heading back to the 2002 numbers. Can't explain why that has happened. Maybe people are have just gotten tired of the complaining...maybe all those new members came and dropped off...Maybe all those old photographers moved on to make alot of money...or maybe more people are just finding it easier to be free members...who knows. |
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11/05/2010 10:43:32 AM · #24 |
Dow Jones Industrial Average Versus US Unemployment Rate Versus Unique Users who entered at least one challenge:
Discuss... |
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