Here are some of the results...
- 75% of respondents read the site via RSS with 55% occasionally clicking through to the site and 20% never clicking through. 25% visit directly via a bookmark.
- it was pretty evenly split between Google Reader and Bloglines with 60-40% for each respective service. Even though I love it and have raved about it on this blog multiple times, no one uses NetVibes.
- 30% of people read/visit the site when they see a new post, 12% visit multiple times per day, 20% visit daily, 20% visit every few days, 6% visit weekly and 12% visit "whenever the mood strikes me". Nobody answered "monthly or less frequently" but then again, I don't think I've had the post up for a month yet!
- Given that the blog started when I was in library school and is known mostly to people who are either professors, alumni, former colleagues from when I was attending FIMS or current students there now (and the same categories from other library schools to a lesser degree), it's no surprise that "Library related" and "Library school" are, by far, the most popular types of posts being picked by 87% and 73% of respondents. Other popular categories with more than 50% of people picking them were "Work-Related" (a new category I added to the survey this year) and "Miscellaneous Ramblings" (which sort of surprised me as I don't do a lot of these and tend to not like them as they often feel unfocused and random. But hey, didn't I just describe 90% of blogs in general?)
- "Baby-related", "Pop Culture", "Technology" and "Humour" were all just under the 50% level in terms of popularity with survey respondents.
- Everything else got at least a double-digit approval rating except "Hockey" which only got a 6% approval rating including one person who went so far as to write-in "I like everything you write about except hockey!"
- Sending a strong message to get back to the theme that this blog started with (a message which I may or may not hear!
),
"Library-related" was not only the most popular category for posts I do
now but also, by far, the category people would like to see more posts
in with 67% of respondents citing it. "Work related" (which you can
probably view as a vote for "library related" in some ways) and
"Miscellaneous ramblings" were the other top vote getters in this
area. - "Comments" were by far the most popular widget with people indicating that they read them, even if they don't post them. Every other widget got at least a vote or two except for the LastFM "last song played" widget and the Regina/Calgary/London weather widget (but I use that one on a daily basis so it ain't going anywhere!)
- Maybe surprisingly, 100% of respondents who answered the question liked that this blog has daily posts! (If I remember correctly, last year, it was only a slight majority who thought this was important.) Thanks for the vote of support folks. I'll try to keep it up (even if I have to occasionally "fudge" time stamps the following day to do so!).
- the general comments were very supportive of what I do with this blog and it was nice to see that the respondents included a few former classmates/colleagues from FIMS because I didn't know if those folks were still "out there" reading now that we've all gone our separate ways.
- Pace got lots of kudos as well and I'm sure he'll continue to be a regular feature on the blog. (Idea for a future post - the security/privacy issues around putting up pictures and updates about him - something I've thought about a lot while doing my computer/Internet training sessions the past three months. I didn't show Shea's Flickr account or our YouTube videos at every workshop but occasionally it would come up and then I often had to explain our choice to put this type of material on the Internet to people who still buy into that media-generated hysteria about pedophiles lurking around every URL and IP address.)
- as for ideas for other future posts from the respondents, I can address this one right now: "Will a Large Hadron Collider experiment create a mini black hole that consumes the earth? Or, do aliens blog more than humans?"
Answer: Uhm, no idea. And also, no idea. (Next time, I'm going to include a question about what you're smoking when you fill out the survey!
) 
