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From: vnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (D. W. James)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc
Subject: Re: accuracy of arbitron "reader" data
Message-ID: <10671@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 2 Oct 89 22:38:58 GMT
References: <18401@looking.on.ca> <790@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> <34921@apple.Apple.COM> <19376@looking.on.ca>
Reply-To: vnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (D. W. James)
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 27

In article <19376@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
)But all this is not important in calculating readers per site, unless you
)feel that the readers/site figure for arbitron sites is extremely
)atypical.   NNTP doesn't affect this figure, other than to plump it up,
)since adding reports for sites that read by NNTP would add thousands of
)single-user sites that can't possibly increase the readers/site figure over 1.

	I disagree.  NNTP *does* affect it, if you view readership/site
as based on the *server*, rather than reader machine (which is much like
claiming that it should be based on per terminal...)  NNTP *significantly*
affects your (questionable) method of evaluating the success of groups
if you view it that way.

	Another factor that is becoming more and more important (in
terms of readers and posters) on the net is BITNET sites, for which
there isn't an ARBITRON analogue.  Here at Princeton PUCC is usually
right behind phoenix in terms of posted volume, and it certainly
has more accounts than Phoenix.  So, I agree that the stats are  
only valid as comparisons between groups, not for use as
absolute numbers (which really throws your "stat" out the
window.)

-- 
Later Y'all,  Vnend                       Ignorance is the mother of adventure.   
SCA event list? Mail?  Send to:vnend@phoenix.princeton.edu or vnend@pucc.bitnet   
        Anonymous posting service (NO FLAMES!) at vnend@ms.uky.edu                    
       "First, they stood guard over us.  Then, they sat guard over us.                 Then they wandered off to find some corn plasters and we escaped."