Here are the highlights of our third full day (Friday, October 19).
Ten more video questions came in, and we hit a total more than 12,000 votes from just over 3,500 voters. Roughly speaking, that means we’ve been seeing about 4,000 new votes a day and about 1,200 new voters a day. However, Friday’s web traffic was down from earlier in the week, roughly 3,900 unique visits compared to Thursday’s 7,100. The site’s “top videos” page also saw its first shift in leaders, as a question about “warrantless wiretapping” displaced a question about “transparency” as the top question on the site. A number of blogs have been pointing to that question, which no doubt helps explains the shift.
The top sources of traffic to the site continue to be a mix of direct traffic (from search and email lists, presumably), general news sites like Digg (our #1 referrer) and partner MSNBC.com, big political blogs like Talking Points Memo, Hugh Hewitt/Townhall, Crooks and Liars, Michelle Malkin, HotAir, CaptainsQuarters, and Huffington Post. A deeper look at our traffic sources below these top ten referrers shows the same diversity. So far, then, there is no sign of 10questions being swamped by partisans of any particular stripe.
New news links and blog posts:
ABC News.com reprinted Sarah Lai Stirland’s Wired article: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3751616&page=1
Huffington Post’s Off the Bus project (a co-sponsor) put up a feature story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus-reporter/10questionscom-launches_b_69180.html
Yesterday’s email from BlogHer (a cosponsor) is generating ripples like this one from Happy Katie: http://www.happykatie.com/dailies/2007/10/10questions—m.html
EFF’s call to its supporters to vote up the question on warrantless wiretapping is generating ripples among bloggers like PogoWasRight.org: http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071019135850613
A blog aimed at educators, Gifted and Talented in the 21st Century, picked 10Questions up: http://talentedandgifted.edublogs.org/2007/10/19/election-and-debates-making-it-real-for-gt-students/, writing: “This is another great way to use Web 2.0 technologies with gifted students. Why not have students brainstorm a few questions to ask the presidential candidates. Students could vote on the questions to come up with a list of 3 or 4 really good questions. Then play 4 corners, have students select the question that they want to work on. They create a video of their question and post it…”
Another education oriented site, Voir Dire, has chimed in with the same thought, aimed at grad students: http://lawandcourts.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/the-wisdom-of-crowds-meets-politics/
John Cole’s Balloon Juice blog has been generating a lot of activity among his readers, generating offbeat questions and conversation: http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8885 and http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8892
Ft. Hard Knox, which describes itself as being for “politically-conservative Web 2.0 activists” has jumped in: http://forthardknox.com/2007/10/19/10questionscom/