[net.religion] USENET costs--who's paying for what?

reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (03/16/86)

I've been taking readership data for USENET lately. This data consists of
summaries from 100 sites about the number of readers of various newsgroups.
I then collect it all back at glacier, add the traffic data, and produce
this result. I'm not proposing to do anything with this information, but other
people might.

TOP 40 NEWSGROUPS IN ORDER BY PER-READER COST

    +-- estimated total number of people who read this group, worldwide
    |       +-- approximate $US per reader per month spent sending
    |       |   this group, worldwide.
    |       |        +-- (rating) percentage of the total user population
    |       |        |   who read this group
    |       |        |        +-- (share) percentage of newsreaders who read
    |       |        |        |   this group.
    V       V        V        V
  1403   $33.84     0.66     2.44  net.religion.christian
  1348    24.15     0.63     2.34  net.philosophy
  2505    21.65     1.17     4.35  net.politics
  1789    18.51     0.84     3.11  net.religion
  1211    16.98     0.57     2.10  net.abortion
  3716    13.10     1.74     6.46  net.space
  4982    11.91     2.33     8.66  net.singles
  2807    11.51     1.32     4.88  mod.techreports
  5326    10.94     2.50     9.25  net.women
  4308    10.30     2.02     7.48  net.music
  4087     9.55     1.91     7.10  net.micro.amiga
  4569     9.51     2.14     7.94  net.sources.mac
 12649     9.31     5.92    21.98  net.sources
  6799     8.83     3.18    11.81  net.sources.games
  1624     8.62     0.76     2.82  net.comics
  1665     8.36     0.78     2.89  net.sport.hoops
  2918     7.41     1.37     5.07  net.cse
 10171     7.33     4.76    17.67  mod.sources
  2505     7.15     1.17     4.35  net.startrek
  3317     6.72     1.55     5.76  net.sf-lovers
  4005     6.46     1.88     6.96  net.auto
   867     6.36     0.41     1.51  net.sport.hockey
  2518     5.33     1.18     4.38  net.kids
  2463     5.28     1.15     4.28  mod.computers.vax
  1486     5.28     0.70     2.58  net.ham-radio
  2188     5.24     1.03     3.80  net.motss
  1500     5.11     0.70     2.61  net.tv.drwho
  1541     4.93     0.72     2.68  net.games.pbm
  3124     4.87     1.46     5.43  net.micro.apple
  5767     4.86     2.70    10.02  net.micro.pc
  4858     4.74     2.28     8.44  net.movies
  1803     4.71     0.84     3.13  net.nlang.india
  1403     4.63     0.66     2.44  net.cycle
  6083     4.62     2.85    10.57  net.micro.mac
  2766     4.49     1.30     4.81  net.music.classical
  6331     4.19     2.97    11.00  net.arch
  2408     4.08     1.13     4.18  net.nlang
  2064     4.05     0.97     3.59  net.aviation
  4143     4.03     1.94     7.20  net.news.group
  5574     3.95     2.61     9.68  net.audio
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA

apak@oddjob.UUCP (Adrian Kent) (03/18/86)

In article <5382@glacier.ARPA> reid@glacier.UUCP writes:
>
>I've been taking readership data for USENET lately. This data consists of
>summaries from 100 sites about the number of readers of various newsgroups.
>I then collect it all back at glacier, add the traffic data, and produce
>this result. I'm not proposing to do anything with this information, but other
>people might.
>TOP 40 NEWSGROUPS IN ORDER BY PER-READER COST
   lots of figures follow.
>	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
>	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
      Sorry for posting to all the groups the original went to. I just want to
point out two things:
(1) the figures quoted in this list are spuriously accurate (estimated world
audience to the nearest person, cost per person to the nearest cent.) In fact,
there's no indication how either the readership or the cost were estimated,
and so no reason to place any faith at all in the numbers.
(2) newsgroups have, in the past, been abolished for completely spurious 
reasons: history has been rewritten, 'votes' have been taken on the basis of
one pro-abolitionist's claim about the contents of his private mail - end of
group. 
                       adrian

reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (03/21/86)

In article <1241@oddjob.UUCP> apak@oddjob.UUCP (Adrian Kent) writes:
> (various blah blah woof woof about my data)

The discussion of the methodology, its accuracy, and its meaning is taking
place in net.news.group (where it belongs).
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA