The SkunK-GERS World Tour

As a special Blog to start off the New Year, and since we seem to have caught up on the real news, the SkunK though he would give his readers a little look inside SkunK Headquarters. Using some Google Analytic Software we are able to see which city the viewers of the blog come from. No, it does not report individual information in any way. Google seems to be very good about protecting everyone's privacy. Here is a blow up of this map if you are interested in more detail:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgzzx2hv_28dwbd3qf2


The map above shows the number of "hits" from a particular city, or in the case of a small town - the nearest city. In this case the map shows that in the last 30 days- 3 Dec '08 through 2 Jan '09 we had 2,837 visits from 315 cities. The bigger the circle the larger the number of "hits". Notice about 73% of the visits were from the USA and about 25% were from Europe - centered on Germany and the Frankfurt market. The chart below shows the "top ten" countries for SkunK Blog hits. We also have a small number of hits scattered around the globe. We have gotten hits on every continent - but since it only maintains a running total in the last 30 days, everyone does not show up on this map.

O'Come on SkunK - the last Annual report showed less than 1,000 GERS shareholders - how can you claim that 3 times that number is visiting your rinky dinky site?

Like everything - you gotta read the fine print. Yes, we did get 2,837 visits in the last 30 days. However, I imagine some of you visit everyday as part of your daily path of sites you check to keep updated on your investments. Others visit two or three times a week. Others visit only once a month (and your breaking my heart!)

Ah ha! I knew their was a catch!

What they also have is a number called "Absolute Unique Visitors". When a single visitor visits multiple times in a single day they are counted as "one". So in the last 30 days we have had over 738 "Absolute Unique Visitors" to the site.

SkunK - this does me no good as an investor unless I know whether your traffic is going up or down! If I knew that then some of this self-backslapping baloney might actually mean something to an investor! Well the interesting chart above shows the visits by day. Interest peaked on the 16th and 17th as the $38M dollar deal was announced. Again - leave your glasses in your pocket - here is a link to a blow up of this chart. http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgzzx2hv_32hggwh6mf

Here are some notes I wrote down 30 Sept 08 since I foresaw both this New Years blog and your excellent question about trends. This covers the month of September '08:

The site averaged 66.87 visits per day (2,006 total) with a day high of 156 visits and a day low of 38. There were exactly 600 absolute unique visitors in the last 30 days. The average time on the blog was just over a minute and a half. Hits are from 28 countries and 285 cities: 1468 come from the USA, 396 from Germany, 19 from UK. When the Olympics started China opened up a bit with 30-40 hits - and we still got 12 hits over the last month.

For those who see a problem with the SkunK picking September to compare against - I also have had a seperate simple hit counter since the end of Feb. I just got this email update: Number of hits since 02/26/2008: 11,650. So for the just over ten month period, we see an average of just over 1,150 hits per month. The 2,006 total hits in September and the 2837 in the last 30 days, the SkunK believes, is therefore reflective of the overall steady increase in interest in this topic.
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Analysis:
Using September as a reference "Absolute Unique Visitors" are up over 20%. The average amount of time on site more than doubled. I attribute this mostly to staring at the pretty girl in the tornado picture a few blogs back. In any case it appears that we are slowly expanding the numbers of viewers on this site. I figure that either interest in GERS and the shareholder base may be expanding - or more people are googling "SkunK Removal Service" and stumble on the site. As always, the SkunK will leave that call up to you. Just though you'd like to know.

SkunK

PS. The SkunK noticed the total visits increased by about 12 during the time it took me to write this blog. (Notice the difference between the first map and the last chart.) Apparently it keeps a running total.