SUGGESTION: Reasons for adding a "share column" on statistics report

1. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 11 years ago

   I think it would be useful to have a column added to the statistics page that shows the total number of shares for each hub (Tweets and Facebook likes).
   
   There is not enough room to add two columns. So this could be a sum of all tweets and all Facebook likes in one column labeled "Shares".
   
   I guess the title column can be reduced and long titles can take two lines (as is being done already). That should allow for adding one more column.
   
   The advantage of being able to see this information in the statistics report is that it shows us which of our hubs are being liked so much that they are being shared on social networks.
   
   This information is useful in that Hubbers will know where they need to put more attention. Hubs that are not shared at all may need some work. Hubs that have a high share rate should definitely be maintained to be kept up to date if necessary, so as not to lose the strength they have.

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   1. 94

      Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I second that motion. That is a freakin fantastic idea!!

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2. 71

   Cagsilposted 11 years ago

   I don't think it's necessary.

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   1. 94

      Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      you wouldn't Cagsil... lol

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      1. 71

         Cagsilposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         

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         1. 94

            Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            ok in all seriousness... you wouldn't like to have that information?

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            1. 71

               Cagsilposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I don't think it's necessary.

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      relacheposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'll second that.

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3. 58

   Alternative Primeposted 11 years ago

   Glenn -
   
   Why would a Hub which is not shared need work? There is virtually zero connection between quality and "Sharing" - Just like there is zero connection between Hub & Hubber Scores and Quality - From my experience, Hubs which are excessively shared are perhaps the articles which need a little or possibly even more than a little attention, hence interested parties accommodate the need for additional promotion by "Sharing" -
   
   HP should be sifting through and eliminating useless numbers and stats, along with an abundance of "Junk", in a streamlining effort, not adding more irrelevant, meaningless, unnecessary, ill-conceived ways to try to manipulate and or control the action -
   
   Why do I get the distinct impression you are brainstorming ingenious ways to diminish the significance of the standard definition of "Quality" by intentionally or inadvertently suggesting there is a direct link between this highly valued word and an activity as irrelevant as "Social Sharing" - I agree, circulating information is an integral component which partially defines todays interactive online universe however, the number of times an article is "Shared" is not necessarily indicative of "Quality", therefore, why try to connect the two? -
   
   For very good reason Glenn, I will not allow my hard work published here at HP to be casually "Shared" outside this venue without prior expressed permission, due to personal preference and legal consideration, and I follow the same principles when publishing on other much larger and more prominent platforms, so if an idea like yours is implemented it would be the equivalent of an engraved invitation for those of whom might lack moral and ethical character, to continue a ramping up of widespread social corruption of the system to possibly attain unfair advantage - An activity I refuse to participate in despite potential short lived benefit -
   
   Therefore, initiatives such as "Sharing Stats" on HP, which would presumably be "Mandatory", should in my opinion be quashed immediately without consideration -

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4. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 11 years ago

   Alternative Prime,
   
   You are entitled to your opinion. But why do you say that information is an ill-conceived way to try to manipulate and or control the action?
   
   I always find information useful and seek it out whenever I can.  You don’t need to use it if you don’t want to.
   
   I think you are misunderstanding this. I am not talking about sharing the information. I am talking about having the information privately displayed to us in our own existing statistics reports. Are you saying you don't value that report that has been available to all of us ever since I can remember?
   
   Your hubs already have buttons to share on Twitter and on Facebook. It's there if you like it or not.
   
   You should be pleased when someone wants to tweet about your Hubs. And I would think that you would want to know about it without having to look at every hub of yours individually.
   
   My new "feature suggestion" is simply to add this information all together in one place to make it easier to analyze and use.

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5. 94

   Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years ago

   I agree with you Glenn. It's a few more pieces to the puzzle. In my experience (which admittedly is not very much at all) people have shared my hubs only when they really liked them. I'd like to know which hubs get shared the most so that I can more easily determine where my strengths are. I don't know why everyone wouldn't want that, but to each his own. They can always make it an option.

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6. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 11 years ago

   Daughter Of Maat,
   
   That's very well said. I also learn where my strengths are by observing what people want to tell others about. If people don't want to let others know about something they read, then that implies something may be wrong.  I prefer to know about it so I can work on it.

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   1. 94

      Daughter Of Maatposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Why thank you sir. It could also be helpful for newer hubbers (like myself) who are still attempting to find their niche. Learning which hubs the readers really enjoyed obviously show a strength, but could also be a niche I hadn't thought about. I may think my health articles are my niche, but the readers may prefer my parenting articles (for example). There's really quite a bit of information that could be gleaned from a share tally column.

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7. 75

   MickiSposted 11 years ago

   Glenn, thanks for the suggestion. Daughter of Matt, thanks for chiming in and helping to spur the discussion.
   
   Given that the suggestion is for the privately viewed My Account section of the site, and at least some Hubbers would find it helpful, I think it's a great idea.
   
   Alternative Prime, you can ignore it, if you wouldn't find it useful.
   
   Here's what I'm thinking (in order to address the fact that Stats are so crowded):
   1. Add a new page My Account > Statistics > Shares
   2. It would look very similar to the Statistics > Feedback page.
   3. There would be a column for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, HubPages Followers, and Total (the shares that we can actually count on the backend. Sorry, can't count things like Reddit, etc.)
   
   I'll see how much work this is for our development team.

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   1. 74

      WriteAngledposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Why not give us the ability to choose which columns we want displayed in the stats overview?
      
      That way, people could select the columns containing information they find useful and not have the rest cluttering up the page.
      
      If that is not possible, what about making each column width adjustable (as in file lists displayed on computers), so we can squeeze irrelevant columns practically out of existence?

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      1. 75

         MickiSposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Great ideas, WriteAngled. They take much more time to implement if customization is allowed. Much easier to just show straight stats.
         
         Not to say that we couldn't do this in the future, but for the sake of getting something implemented quickly (i.e. I might be able to slip this one into our development schedule in the next few weeks) that would be useful to Hubbers, this is the best approach.

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      Millionaire Tipsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I really like this idea. The more info the better!

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8. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 11 years ago

   Micki,
   
   Your idea is even better than my original suggestion. Thank you very much for coming up with a way to show the individual totals for each share network. And I noticed you added followers to list as well.
   
   An itemized report is going to be much more useful for analyzing what's going on with our hubs than just a total share count as I first suggested.
   
   While we're on the subject, is there any chance of adding the Google +1 button back to the share list? I might've missed it but I never saw anything in the HP blog about its removal. I know it's still in the Q&A section, but not in hubs ever since the new layout.
   
   Thanks for your and HP's continued effort and work creating various stat reports to use for monitoring, maintaining, and improving our hubs. 
   
   Hopefully the development team will find a cost-effective way to do the programming.

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   1. 75

      MickiSposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Re: the Google+ button:
      
      1. It may be coming off of Q&A soon. Ari was waiting for us to finalize the design of the Hub, so that he could polish off Q&A with a similar look.
      
      2. We hardly get any traffic from Google+, and certainly not enough to justify such valuable real estate. And, Google+ is dying on the vine, from an industry insider standpoint.
      
      3. Even Google has publicly stated that the data they get from Google+ is too muddy to be effective to use in their search algorithms. So, there is no value from a pure search traffic standpoint either.
      
      4. Through testing, we learned that the more options that you show people for sharing, the less likely they are to share. Too many choices = no clicks. So, if we can only have 3 shares buttons + the ability to share to your HubPages followers, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are, by far, the biggest.
      
      Since the new Hub design went live, we have seen a 50% increase in the number of shares of Hubs.

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         paradigmsearchposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         WTG!!!

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         1. 75

            MickiSposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks! :-D

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      2. 96

         Glenn Stokposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Micki,
         
         I'm glad to see so much thought went into the decision to drop Google +1 from share options. I also read in Google's blog about the fact that Google+ is not bringing much traffic. I figured that was the reason why HP dropped it.
         
         I also agree with the idea that too many choices reduce the chances of anyone clicking a share option. Less is more.
         
         The increase in number of shares since the new layout is probably due to the share box floating down to stay visible. I'm glad it was implemented that way. I've noticed my traffic increase since the new layout.
         
         Thanks for your reply about all this and for all the hard work you and all the others are doing.

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         1. 75

            MickiSposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            You're welcome, Glen. Glad that it's appreciated. And very glad to hear that your traffic is up!

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9. 94

   melbelposted 11 years ago

   I really think this would be cool. With just one or two hubs it's easy to see this information, but once you become the proud parent of 20+ hubs, it gets tedious. Seeing it all in one place would be awesome!

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10. 71

    LetitiaFTposted 11 years ago

    I support this idea too. This would indeed help us to see which of our hubs people like enough to share. I don't think people share indiscriminately because they don't want to overburden their social networks or their own material will pass by the wayside.
    I'd just be happy if I could share others' work from time to time. My share button disappeared a while ago, before I ever used it. The only one that shows up is for my own work, and that's no fun!

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11. 58

    Alternative Primeposted 11 years ago

    MickiS -
    
    Aside from the potential legal and ethical issues, this goes far beyond my personal dissenting opinions or preference by drifting into the realm of encouraging article "Tweaks" based solely upon "Community Popularity" and not necessarily on "Quality" where the primary focus should be if anyone is genuinely concerned with pursuing long term success - A divergence from building a data base filled with "Quality Driven" archives can and probably will be detrimental to the entire site -
    
    A "Cleanup" is already desperately needed yet staff is actually considering implementation of an "Idea" which will encourage a deepening or exacerbation of this chronic problem, while overtly discouraging the creation and maintaining of quality focused works -
    
    I don't think I'm the only person who fails to see the urgency in rolling out such an ill-conceived, trivial feature, when there is obviously so much sifting work to be done in so many other areas -

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12. 75

    MickiSposted 11 years ago

    I've done more research on this suggestion, and it turns out that it's not as easy as one would think.
    
    Here's the difficulty (as best as I can describe in laymen's terms as it's rather complicated):
    The numbers that are displayed for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media are stored on the social media network's servers and not on HubPages servers. The social networks do not make this data available to us via their programming interfaces. Thus, we don't have the data to make the report.
    
    We could "scrape" the html from the page, but that would have significant impact to our page load speeds and that has significant impact on traffic, reader engagement, etc.
    
    The conclusion is that until this data is available to us via the programming the interfaces, it's low priority for us as the cost to implement and impact to page performance is too hight.
    
    Sorry, Glenn. I know it's not the response for which you (and I) were hoping. However, I thought it better to be honest and transparent when day after day you don't see this feature implemented.

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13. 96

    Glenn Stokposted 11 years ago

    Don't feel bad Micki.  I'm a programmer and I understand every point you mentioned. To tell you the truth, I was thinking these same things when I first thought of the idea, wondering how I would implement it.
    
    I know the data is stored on the respective servers of Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I was actually thinking that the only solution would be to keep HP's own counters in HP's database. But that would mean all the share counts would start from zero.
    
    From a programmer's point of view, scraping the data from each and every hub would mean reading a virtual screen image. I've done a similar thing in the past elsewhere. That also is definitely not the way to go since it is a huge resource hog.
    
    So rest assured that I completely understand the decision to skip this implementation. Thanks for the transparency on HP's decisions.

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    1. 75

       MickiSposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       If only all were as understanding as you, Glenn. Thanks for the great thread!

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