Tag: traffic

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Today I noticed a spike in traffic coming from a post on Spread Firefox where I had made a comment. Not a ton of traffic, just ~15 hits from the same page on the same day, but that’s unusual for traffic from SFX posts—especially old ones. I checked to see if it had climbed into the site’s list of top posts (the usual explanation), but it wasn’t there. I just couldn’t figure out what was causing the traffic.

Then I realized the author of that post had another story show up on Slashdot today. I discovered this chain of links:

  1. Slashdot: Just what has Microsoft been doing for IE 7?
  2. Idealog: Microsoft Drops The Ball on Internet Explorer 7 Standards Compliance [archive.org]
  3. SFX: Should NewsCloud.com Remain Firefox Only? [archive.org]
  4. The Alternative Browser Alliance (via signature in comment)

You can see how powerful the Slashdot effect is, if it can cause a noticeable (if minor) spike in traffic to a page 3 degrees away!

Of course, it pales next to being linked from the ISC Handler’s Diary, which seems to have pulled in 10 times as many visitors in 2 days. (Thanks!)

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Traffic signal with both left and right arrows

This is a traffic signal on the Jeffrey off-ramp from the northbound 5 in Irvine. The ramp is 3 lanes wide, and the middle lane can go either way. It’s not often that you actually see a double arrow like this, though.

It’s times like this that make me wish I’d taken a picture of the “U-Turn Only” sign I saw a few years ago. The street it was on has since been extended, and the sign is long gone.

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The Beat remarks that maybe Padres games during Comic-con WASN’T such a hot idea. [archive.org]

The Beat asked [the cab driver taking them to the airport] how traffic had been during the Comic-con/Padres game confluence.

“Oh, that was a fiasco,” she told us.

Having had to skip several trolleys that were indistinguishable from large moving sardine cans, I have to agree. On the other hand, the fireworks display over Petco Park on Saturday night was breathtaking!

Edit: The trolley system is working on untangling the mess for next time:

It was the first time the agency was called upon to overlay its special-event service, which runs between Qualcomm Stadium and the Gaslamp Quarter, with the new Green Line between Santee and Old Town.

Besides a steady stream of passengers at the San Diego Convention Center on what is traditionally the busiest day of the annual comics convention, trolleys carried 8,000 to 9,000 Padres fans. Some fans said they waited far longer than usual for the special-events trains, which normally provide speedier passage to and from the ballpark by bypassing downtown.

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I suppose it was too much to hope that the traffic spike from Smallville’s Flash guest spot would translate into a long-term increase, but it seems to have dropped to normal levels after 1½ weeks:

Traffic graph showing 3x traffic for Oct. 20-21, dropping to 2x then leveling off to about normal by the end of the month.
Daily traffic for Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning (October 2004)

Still, it was a pretty huge spike, and I’m seeing a lot of new referrers as well. At one point the top non-search-engine referrer was actually Television Without Pity (although they seemed a bit confused about the reference they were linking to — they picked an alternate universe for Bart’s “start a league” line instead of, say, the Justice League). Lots of Smallville and Superman forums, sites, blog and LiveJournal posts linked to Bart Allen (Impulse/Kid Flash), Bart Allen (juvenile delinquent) and Superman/Flash races. It’s always nice to get some exposure outside of the usual sources, even if it is only temporary.

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Wow. I expected a spike in traffic after the Flash appeared on last night’s Smallville, but I wasn’t expecting a three-fold increase!

It’s all on the Flash site — no sign of spillover onto this blog, for instance — but Bart Allen’s 15 minutes of fame have propelled him to the #3 spot (right after the Teen Titans and Raven).

With luck I answered people’s questions about the Flash, Bart Allen, and just who is faster in a race between the Flash and Superman. With more luck, some of them will be intrigued enough to come back. With even more luck, some of them will pick up the comic to see what they’re missing.

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