I love metrics.

OK, that’s not precisely true. I love the things we can learn from metrics, and the process of discovering that learning. In and of themselves, the metrics are nothing but numbers, and by themselves numbers just aren’t that exciting. What the numbers represent, on the other hand, can be very, very interesting.

With that in mind, here are some numbers from 2013.

Top Ten GeekFluent Posts of 2013

Here are the most-read posts that I wrote in 2013:

1. (2,471 views) EMC Announces Updates to BRS Line (Data Domain, Avamar, NetWorker), Part One
2. (1,803 views) Use Your Windows Laptop to Make a Bootable USB Key for vSphere Installations
3. (1,105 views) EMC Enhances RecoverPoint (and takes it virtual!)
4. (1,012 views) EMC Announces Next-Generation VNX – Takes It Full Multicore
5. (959 views) EMC Announces VPLEX Metro Express Edition (plus VAAI support)
6. (932 views) EMC Announces Joint Isilon/Syncplicity File Sharing Solution
7. (723 views) EMC Announces Updates to BRS Line (Data Domain, Avamar, NetWorker), Part Two
8. (619 views) EMC Announces Upcoming Updates to Isilon OneFS
9. (423 views) Magic Balloon: A Whiteboarding Creativity Game/Exercise
10. (377 views) VCE Announces New Vblock Offerings

Some metrics on the above metrics:

• The #1 post had 37% more views than the #2 post, and 557% more than the #10 post.
• 8 of the top 10 posts are about vendor product announcements.
• 2 of the top 10 posts are “How-To” postings.

The more literal reader will have noticed that this post was titled the “Most-Read GeekFluent Posts of 2013″ and the above list only shows views of posts written during 2013. If I include all posts, the list looks like this:

1. (3,601 views) What Will VAAI v2 Do for You? Part 2 of 2: NFS
2. (2,471 views) EMC Announces Updates to BRS Line (Data Domain, Avamar, NetWorker), Part One
3. (1,803 views) Use Your Windows Laptop to Make a Bootable USB Key for vSphere Installations
4. (1,175 views) What Will VAAI v2 Do for You? Part 1 of 2: Block
5. (1,105 views) EMC Enhances RecoverPoint (and takes it virtual!)
6. (1,012 views) EMC Announces Next-Generation VNX – Takes It Full Multicore
7. (959 views) EMC Announces VPLEX Metro Express Edition (plus VAAI support)
8. (932 views) EMC Announces Joint Isilon/Syncplicity File Sharing Solution
9. (917 views) Enhancement to VAAI-NAS in vSphere 5.1
10. (723 views) EMC Announces Updates to BRS Line (Data Domain, Avamar, NetWorker), Part Two

Some metrics on the new list:

• My most-read post in 2013 was posted in March of 2012.
• The #1 post had 46% more views than the #2 post and 398% more views than the #10 post.
• 3 of the 10 most-read posts in 2013 were published in 2012.
• 6 of the top 10 posts are about vendor product announcements.
• 3 of the top 10 posts are about VAAI.
• 1 of the top 10 posts is a “How-To” posting.

Conclusions

The numbers are all well and good, but what do they tell us?

To be 100% honest, I’m not entirely sure, but here are the conclusions I’ve drawn:

1. Other people like VAAI almost as much as I do. The “search term” metrics support this idea, too. The vast majority of the search terms used to find my site involve “vaai” (many of those some combination of “vaai” and “nfs”).
2. People like product announcements, but want to read something other than the press releases and corporate marketing pieces written by the folks who make the product(s).
3. People like “How To” postings.

How will this affect 2014? Well, clearly I should:

1. Write more about VAAI.
2. Continue to post my own takes on product announcements.
3. Write more “How To” postings.
4. Maybe experiment with branching out into a fourth area of some sort.

So, that’s what I’ll shoot for. Check by in January 2015, and let’s see how well I did.