Randy Petersen

A message from a fellow member of FlyerTalk thought that i could update some of the information here. Whether here or on other forums there will always be personal thoughts which isn't a bad thing, but there should also be room to remind our fellow members that there is interest in topics well beyond what you may personally be interested in and that doesn't require a downgrade of respect to acknowledge it.

Actually RFD, that blog has a very healthy readership and in fact (yes, 'fact') after five years the PMM blog is within a small single digit of the same readership numbers that another popular blog, One Mile At A Time, had when it was five years old. It may not be to your reading pleasure, but it does not require insulting his readers. Let's be cool about the world we do not know.

Again, the style and content may not be to your interest, but actually this blog (Renés Points) has more than 4 readers and in fact (yes, 'fact') in its fourth year is fairly close in readership of another popular blog, One Mile At A Time, in its fourth year (a very small double digit difference). Again as with PMM, maybe it would be fair to acknowledge that there may be other fellow travelers who have different interests than yours and which do not require scolding.

Unfortunately you are using an incorrect basis point for your point. I'll try to correct that with a few guidance comments below. True, Renés Points is not in our top five but frankly about 843 other blogs in the same general content are not either. If you'll read my note of a fact above, you'll see that indeed the blog does have a sizeable readership for which René has worked very hard to grow. An audience size that at least 820 other blogs have yet to grow. But still no reason to be combative about the blog — we really could be more friendly here. As for The Points Guy, maybe not so much as you'll read below. That blog has nearly the same number of active authors (bloggers) as BoardingArea and has been very successful. It's nice to see entrepreneurship at play.

And I agree, Wandering is a really good blog. You might have some misperceptions as to how BoardingArea actually works. It's a host, similar to the way Blogger or WordPress work and as such there really is not maximum or minimum requirements are to "views". What we do work on with the bloggers is staying active in their posting so provide as much encouragement as possible to help them stay positive. However we acknowledge that life, work and even other interests can and do play a large part in the role of being an active blogger and as such we do have a sabbatical program where we do delist blogs that are taking some time off. We think this helps them to not feel pressure about the blog when there are other things in their lives. We're not and never have been all about the big guys/gals, we've long been proud of our support for helping develop the niches such as the first platform to feature the female business traveler/blogger, the first to feature local language blogs such as Chinese, German, Italian, etc. and the first to welcome the niches such as a blog for Muslim travelers. Anyway, it's not about the views, it's about the blogger and the reader.

I've always enjoyed watching up close the positive relationship that Gary and Ben have had. Very unusual as compared to the relationships that other bloggers in the top 10 have. Applause to both of them and i think they both have won from that approach. As well, Ben has always been very helpful to me in helping to mentor some of the other new bloggers. This sort of positive thing does go round.

I'll try and help you with some relevant information Oliver. Alexa is not all that accurate any longer and those in the industry such as Skift and many others use similarweb.com for tracking trends and estimated traffic numbers. With our knowledge of a great number of websites traffic, we'd agree with others than it is more closely reliable than Alexa. However, while it likely represents closely related traffic number for The Points Guy and FlyerTalk and many others, it underestimates BoardingArea's traffic solely because of the nuances that it has vs. other typical websites. For instance, traffic on both The Points Guy and FlyerTalk are fairly easy since both operate in a sub-directory fashion. BoardingArea does not, it operates on a sub-domain fashion which can cause unacknowledged traffic. Also, BoardingArea has a number of non-hosted blogs in its network such as Wandering Aramean, Travel Skills and Travel Codex which do not use the BoardingArea naming convention in their URL (personal preference often with some of the more technical inclined bloggers) but for which would not show up in any standard algorithms for traffic since they are not identified by URL. I'd estimate that because of these nuances external reporting websites underestimate BoardingArea by nearly 50%. Anyway, because of this the other metrics mentioned by others in this thread are clearly not accurate and I only provide this information as a guideline to perhaps help some members return to topics of more interest elsewhere than trying to propagate a myth.

Thanks nine. This reinforces a project we have in house to provide exactly what you suggest here. We have been working on how best to provide our own custom feed in addition to the feeds that can come from any of the individual blogs. Actually this started with us as part of the idea of how to provide "filters" in an upcoming BoardingArea app and being very agnostic to devices and native readership it does fall into the rss feed area. Thanks again for reinforcing the idea and hopefully we'll have this to you soon enough. And we totally agree that there can be some blogs that are irrelevant to some readers. Though the great success that BoardingArea has enjoyed is because it has made available to the front page readers the ability to "discover" blogs and content they simply did not know about.

Again, thanks all for your continued support of FlyerTalk—relevant yesterday, relevant today and relevant tomorrow.

nineworldseries

Thank you, Randy, for your informative and well-thought out responses above. I definitely appreciate them.

oliver2002

You took my response out of context, Randy. A member asked where another member had his data from. I responded that he got it from Alexa.

SkiAdcock

Agree.

SanDiego1K

Thanks, Randy. It's good to see the founder of FlyerTalk and the Boarding Area posting.

84fiero

It's just too bad PM&M has to stoop to things like this to fill their posts:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/25575116-post59.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/25795128-post642.html

gpapadop

Thanks Randy for taking the time to comment. Very informative.

We have the right to criticize commercial businesses and provide constructive feedback and to express ourselves in this great country.

>>>>>>>Anyway, it's not about the views, it's about the blogger and the reader.

You lost me there. I disagree. If it was about the reader some of the blogs in the BA would not be allowed! And they are allowed because, cough, the page views.

My own opinion only.

iadisgreat

It's not a surprise that PMM or Renes Points (sic) have good readership. Most people will go to Boarding Area and read a plethora of blogs. Doesn't mean the content is any good on all of them.

Do the bloggers or their benefactors have any connection to the real world? *rolls eyes*

TMM1982

Show some respect to Randy.

RTW1

Really..... remember it's the same guy that promoted that shady Wall & Main deal on buying miles, just to make a few bucks for himself.
And there is nothing disrespectful in the post to start with.

kokonutz

Amen to that! ^

TMM1982

Doesn't Randy own this site? So if you're going to use what's his, the least people could do is show some respect.

GRALISTAIR

I totally agree- thanks very much

RTW1

No he doesn't, he cashed out (nothing wrong with that).... but no reason to assume he walks on water and to take what he tells as gospel (he is simply revenue driven).

gpapadop

Dude, Randy sold this site years ago. Before you post something, please consider that some of us have been around here for close to 20 years and we may know a little more than you, including knowing these people in person. Thank you.