They reveal a pattern of persistence. Normal postings (i.e technology postings) to this blog get between 300 and 700 hits unless they’re unusually popular when it can spiral into the thousands. However the pattern of traffic is very distinct, with the posting getting hit for about 3 weeks and then the traffic dying away to a sporadic hit every now and then.
The chain letter articles are completely different to this. First of all they are not particularly popular when first posted, but the traffic just goes on and on.
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You can see this from the illustration of traffic patterns for all three postings. Nearly all the traffic comes directly from Google searches searching on “Chinese Proverb”, “Anthony De Croud” and “Pearlas Sandborn.”
The spikes occur mid-week, with the dips happening on Saturday or Sunday when fewer people care to make inquiries about chain letters. But also notice the long term cycles. The first two graphs show a small peak of activity in January (when I was first sent the Chinese Proverb chain letter) and one which grew through May and June and is now starting to tail off. By contrast the Bill Gates chain letter peaked in February and grew slightly more active in June. I bet these patterns are similar to the patterns of infection of common infectious diseases.
I intend to keep on watching these graphs as they almost certainly correlate to the volume of each chain email in circulation. In the event of new large spikes I’ll let you know.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
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