The Conversational Index for blogs

Stowe Boyd has introduced the notion of a Conversational Index to measure the effectiveness of blogs. I agree completely with Stowe on this. In fact, several months ago my managers at Microsoft asked me to establish a monthly report on page view statistics and blog effectiveness. I used the exact same measure that Stowe has coined as the "Conversational Index".

The Conversational Index measures how much conversation is happening on a blog by comparing the number of Comments and Trackbacks versus the number of Posts. Meaning, there should be more comments and trackbacks than posts to show that it is a conversation, not a one way broadcast.

I haven't been blogging for too long but here are my "CI" numbers from TypePad.

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

Posts: 83  |   Comments: 166  |   TrackBacks: 90  |   Authors: 1

URL: http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/

I have been tracking these numbers closely since the very beginning of my blog. The Comments have been running 2 to 1 to my posts, and the Trackbacks have always been slightly more than my posts. So, my Conversational Index = (166+90)/83 = 3.08  I think this is a very good ratio of conversation to broadcast.

Note, I have calculated the number differently than Stowe, but the meaning and measurement is the same. Using my formula and Stowe's blog stats his blog has a CI of (71+31)/80=1.27. Stowe Boyd has several blogs, and is a very well known writer, so my guess is that these numbers are from one of his newer, and lesser known, blogs.

Zoli Erdos adds to Stowe's theme "Tracking the Complete Conversation" Here is an excerpt:

As Stowe points out, for truly vibrant blogs the CI will be <1, which means there are far more comments than blog posts (I am cheating a little, ignoring trackbacks).  This will likely be the case for all the Technorati top 100 or even 500 bloggers – from their viewpoint most of the conversation happens on / around their own blog.  However, for the the rest of us, the other 26 million (?) bloggers chances are the conversation really takes place outside our own blog, and I for one certainly can’t keep track of all comments I left on other blogs.

The current crop of tracking / linking services all have a top-down publisher-centric view, where everything revolves around a blog and   its related posts, totally missing this other, “bottom-up” half of the conversation.  So please, somebody give Stowe his badge , but  we also badly  need a way to show by subject matter an integrated view of all conversations where we are participating whether we started the thread or someone else.

I am curious how other blogs Conversation Index might compare, and if this is a good measure of blog effectiveness. How might we develop tools to answer Zoli's request to track the "complete conversation"? Is this a relevant measure?

Anyone care to share their CI numbers?

Comments

[Zoli Erdos]

I'm a relative newbie to blogging, being on the other end of the spectrum - most of the conversation I contribute to happens of other blogs.

That said, I had 175 posts, 69 comments and 53 trackbacks, which results in a CI of 0.69 follwing your method, or 1.43 per Stowe's.

The numbers are somewhat skewed though, as my blog does not accept anonymous comments for spam control reasons. Unfortunately this keeps not ony spam, but real commenters away, too.

[Easton Ellsworth]

Don, great food for thought. My mind hurts from the math-rich post I've just vomited up at my blog. But Stowe's and your ideas really got me thinking.

My CI - according to Stowe's original formula - is now 134 / (156 + 59) = 0.62.

By your formula: (156 + 59) / 134 = 1.60.

By my formula (taking into account the number of unique individuals making comments at and trackbacks to my blog): 134 / [(156 + 59) / 56] = 34.90. What's yours?

Note: I counted "anonymous" commenters as a single person. I suppose I could assume that unique IPs signify unique commenters, though.

I hope this will lead to a better understanding of how to measure the relative importance and/or conversational nature of blogs.

P.S. Now if only I could automate the calculation process ... and chart it over time ... and slice it and dice it!

[Gary Wisniewski]

I am curious how other blogs Conversation Index might compare, and if this is a good measure of blog effectiveness.

I don't think Conversational Index (CI) is a good measure of effectiveness. It surely is an interesting number, and perhaps it is one axis for measuring blogs to determine effectiveness.

One example might be Umair Haque's bubblegeneration blog. Umair blows everybody away with his insights into media economics. Even dedicated bloggers like Fred Wilson sometimes "step back" and just consume what Umair has to say. Umair may have a lower CI than many, but his blog is one of the most influential in the industry.

By contrast, some bloggers are simply "argumentative" and may really engage people in highly active debate. But, if it's unstructured and inconclusive, even a super-high CI might not reflect what people would deem as "effective conversation".

I think something more complex is needed, such as Page Rank technology which not only measures comments and trackbacks, but also weights particular comments and trackbacks according to the source.

[mark nickolas]

My political blog (BluegrassReport.org) has been up for 7 months and so far I'm at 16638 comments and 116 trackbacks for my 1760 posts for a ratio of 9.52 (16638+116)/1760.

Not bad.

[Aayush Iyer]

We should take the CI on the basis of blog genre as well. In a technology blog, you won't have too worry much about true "discussion" comments if that is the ral aim of conversation. In an art blog, you'd have a lot of 1 off comments or the like which don't lead anywhere.

Actually, CI could be graded much better if a higher point is given to return comments lasting more than a specified level.