The most popular squareCircleZ math blog post in 2007

Sol Lederman over at WildAboutMath issued a challenge: Math bloggers: What was your most popular post in 2007?

Now there are several issues raised with this task. What does "most popular post" mean? Some of the complications:

• Does "popular" mean "most visited"? [Just because a post is visited by a browser, it doesn't mean the reader read all of the post - or any of it, for that matter. Most Web users are 'peckers' - 10 seconds and if it doesn't grab them, they are out of there.]
• Therefore, does "popular" mean "spent most time on the post"? [If they spent a lot of time, it probably means they actually read it and possibly even read parts of it more than once.]
• Does "popular" include a consideration of "loyalty"? [If all readers are 'one time only' visitors, the post could be popular due to good search engine optimisation.]
• A lot of people use blog aggregators, blog email feeds, personal homepages (that include an aggregators), etc. Some (and possibly all) of these do not necessarily register as a 'hit' on the actual blog statistics.
• Does "popular" mean "most commented"? [A post might be liked, but most readers may have nothing more to add.]

Anyway, I'll report on what I know. Here's what squareCircleZ looked like during 2007.

Most Visited

The posts which had the most visits during 2007 (some of these posts were written in 2006 but are still going strong):

• Which websites are most popular in Singapore? [Web stats are fascinating and this is a growth area for math students]
• Peddlers of Cancer [where i rail against the tobacco industry]
• Phase shift or phase angle? [where some much needed clarification of vocabulary ensues]
• Fractal tattoos [this continues to be popular, especially as tattoos become more mainstream]

Most Commented Posts

The posts which caused the most discussion were:

• Towards more meaningful math notation (18) [I'm glad this sparked some interest - I think it is an important issue that math educationists should tackle]
• Microsoft Math 3.0 Review (14) [Vlorbic claimed that the software looked like 'the opposite of helpful'. Is it? Surely it depends a lot on how it is used.]
• Boxing equals brain damage (10) [Where some enthusiasts did not take kindly to my criticism of the 'sport'.]
• The Carnival of Mathematics 二十 (#20) (10) [It was fun to put this together]
• Algebrator review (9) [Where the vendor obtained some feedback. Vlorbic was still not impressed: "looks worse than useless to me"]

Longest Time

The dates where visitors stayed the longest on the site on average were (according to Google Analytics):

• Sat 17 Nov 2007 (the post on that day was Interactive 3D math simulations)
• Sat 3 Nov 2007 (that day's post was The Carnival of Mathematics 二十 (#20))
• Sat 20 Oct 2007 (the previous day's post was Friday math movie - the Rain Man in each of us

Of course, visitors could have been staying long on those days for some other post(s). It's interesting that each one is a Saturday.

Country of Visitor Origin

In order, the most visitors came from:

• United States
• Singapore
• Hong Kong
• Australia
• Canada
• China
• Great Britain
• Belgium

My Favourite Post for 2007

There's a recency effect here I guess, but this week's Friday Math Movie is by yours truly.

Check it out: It's an introduction to the concepts behind Trigonometric Graphs.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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