“There are lies, darned lies and statistics” is a quote that has probably done it’s time. It’s should read, “There are lies, darned lies and web stats”. Statistics are important but it’s quite amusing to spot the bias from one stats engine to another. For example, today I found out I’m in the top 3 Isle of Man Twitter accounts:
I guess I could throw a party, invite friends round for a BBQ and dance around the fire, but what does it all mean? Well, not much really! I’m an avid user of Twitter, so I’m bound to have good stats, but is my Twitter account really all that valuable? Well, it depends on the context in which you’re looking at it. I tend to tweet about interesting thing related to business and technology, so if you’re operating in that space, sure. But if you’re a sports fan, my Twitter account probably has less value than a constipated pigeon. If you’re interested in wildlife conservation, car restoration, fishing, or one of a million varied subjects my Twitter account would be useless to you because you won’t find a single tweet about them.
There are also a number of reasons why the figures used to come up with the grading are arbitrary and easily gamed, but that’s the subject for another discussion. In the meantime, enjoy the champagne!
