@donncha and @micheleneylon tweeted about the stats of the blogging technology behind this year’s Irish Blog Awards, organised by Damien Mulley. It got me thinking about the stats of the software used by all those short-listed in the blog awards. Here they are!

Blog Software

First up are the overall stats. A resounding win for WordPress (both hosted, and self-installed). WordPress is by far the more popular choice, with Google Blogger/BlogSpot a distant 2nd. Between the 2, they’ve pretty much wrapped up Irish blogging (that are award-winning, anyway).

Blog Hosting

Next, just over one third of bloggers use free blog hosting services offered by Google’s BlogSpot/Blogger and WordPress.com, with the majority preferring to install the software on their own servers, or hosting accounts:

Other stats

Other, bordering on silly, stats include:

• 65% of short-listed WordPress installations are out of date, not including WordPress.com hosted blogs, obviously! 85% of Winners are out of date.
• 15% of short-listed WordPress installations hide the version tag in the headers (that WordPress ask that you leave intact). 8% of winners hide it.
• There are no 2 same versions of MovableType installed amongst the short-listed
• The only category where all the blogs are of the same type is Best Newcomer – Sponsored by Teamworkpm.net, and all of those blogs are out of date (with 1 having hidden version info). So the newcomers are choosing WordPress, but not keeping it up to date.
• Best Music Blog – Sponsored by DownloadMusic.ie have the best record for up-to-date WordPress versions (a WordPress.com hosted blog is automatically up-to-date), whilst Best Technology Blog/Blogger – Sponsored by Bitbuzz and Best Newcomer – Sponsored by Teamworkpm.net have the worst record.
• Only 15% of the short-listed are on .ie domains. 20% of winners are on .ie.

Installed Blog Hosting

Finally, Blacknight are the big winners. They’re the most popular host, by far, of self-installed blogs, amongst the short-listed. They’re also joint-favourite hosts for all of the short-listed, including free blog hosting services and self-installed blogs.

Take out free blog hosting services (like WordPress.com and Blogger/BlogSpot), and Blacknight are clear leaders:

Summary

WordPress and Blacknight are the winners, in technology terms, of the Irish Blog Awards ’09.

Note: the sample size is 100. There were 19 categories plus 1 overall winner (source: IWA Finalists Blog Post).

The raw data is in a Google Spreadsheet here.

Any other metrics required?

Such is the significance of the problem that a website has been dedicated to highlighting the issue. It’s ClothingCollection.org run by Donncha O’Caoimh. He also has a good post explaining the issue on his own blog.

Being no stranger to most flyers that are seen on ClothingCollection, I came upon a strange twist today. 2 stickers arrived having been hand-delivered by the same chap at around 5.45am. In challenging times in illegal / fake charity collection, it appears they’re doubling up on resources!

Some action against these gangs (TCM report: Girl, 17, in court for bogus charity collection) has happened, but much too little, in my opinion.

The 2 stickers delivered were for, as discussed on ClothingCollection, Second Hand Rose and Second Life:

The cost for the licence is an index-linked cool €100,000 per pair of 1MHz spectrum allocations (out of a possible 10MhHz). So ComReg is charging up to €0.5m for the spectrum to be used for emergency services only, by state bodies, or state-endorsed bodies, only!

Given that the spectrum is limited, that the system will be nationwide (overlap of frequencies in the different cells), used by multiple users, groups and organisations (multiple channels, eating up bandwidth), and will allow for local communications (think PTT for those who know) as well as remote-to-base, it is likely that the entire spectrun will be used up in time.

Shouldn’t the licence fee for state emergency services radio spectrum be cost-based?

So, self regulation, by the IDMA, is not a workable system. Companies work around the the opted out address using a simple “The Resident” as the addressee. eircom are the only company that have sent me such a mailing (offering broadband, despite me being a customer of theirs already.. but at least they didn’t try and sell me ISDN again). The IDMA database only applies to member companies, so that rules out the less ethical companies. Finally the IDMA database takes weeks (and up to 3 months) to apply, and it’s not doable online. The intention is clearly to make it hard to opt out; clearly.

So what would work? Well I reckon a discrete standardised sticker on the letter box would do the trick. I keep meaning to stick a small “No unaddressed mail please”, or a bolder “Mail delivered to this letter box will incur a charge of €1 if not addressed to this householder”!! The former will likely be ignored by An Post, and casual leaflet delivery guys.

An Post postmen seem to have 2 different systems for delivering their bulk mail. One is to add it to the sorted piles (which involve a personal system of elastic bands for each sector; completely down to the postman him/herself. The second system is to just have sorted bundles of bulk mail (I get 2.7 pieces, on average, a day!), so that the postman can grab a bulk bundle and deliver to every house that he has other mail for. I’ve never had bulk mail delivered by An Post, without some regular addressed mail. The standardised sticker would require that all postmen use the latter system (as it’s not practical to lookup each address for a non-bulk-mail preference at the time of sorting).

So, now we have the standardised sticker, and it doesn’t require radical changes, or expense, on the part of the biggest bulk mail delivery company. It does mean reduced revenue for them, but such is life; that’s going to come about soon anyway. What of the casual local leaflet delivery guys? Well they’re likely to be paid pittens, or to be delivering for their own business. Either way, they won’t care too much for the little sticker on your letter box. That’s where legislation comes in. There’s no voluntary system that’s going to work, without some legislation. Set up a regulator that monitors companies that abuse the system, and fine them, if they consistently abuse it (i.e. a number of complaints). It can be a single-person operation set up in the Dept of Environment, for example. It doesn’t need to cost millions.

Strengthen that legislation a bit, to force companies to provide a free automated (email, web, phone, fax; their choice) opt out system. That rules our the “oh, you have to ring this UK number”, or “oh, Mary isn’t in today” type fob-off excuses. That system must provide a unique transaction ID to the customer (for following up subsequent abuses, by the regulator), and the opt out must become effective within 28 days (plenty of time for those who use mass mailing services).

A bit overkill? Well the local Chinese restaurant certainly loses out. Local businesses invariable have many choices for local advertising. It all costs money, sure, but that’s the reality of business. Successful local businesses will generally have word-of-mouth support. Local start-ups can pay for window space in the local shop. They could advertise in the local free paper, the local charity calendar, etc. Either way, good luck to your business, but I shouldn’t have to pay for your advertising, if I don’t want to.

So, who’s going to design the sticker?

Cheers Larry. So not alone am I not a U2 fan, I’m also to go and F*** off, because you (and yours) decided to pick a technology partner who has clearly demonstrated an inability to perform the job, time and time again; who choose to charge one of the highest (if not the highest) commission in the service industry. How hard is it to get decent hardware to support a queuing system? Not that hard. Are ticketmaster up to the job? Clearly not. Is that U2 fans’ fault? Clearly not. Have they a right to complain at a crap decision by U2? Absolutely! Especially if they signed up to the farce that is premium membership of U2.com.

So Larry, I say 2 things to you:
1) Get some direction on how to treat your fan base
2) “F*** you right back”

Christy Moore summed it up when he said it was great to see the hall full, even though most people there never saw the original band live. I like lots of different types of music (and not just old fogey stuff!!), but this was truely a fine rendition of Irish tradtitional music. It was clear to see the lads were mainly there for the music, and not the money.

I’d highly recommend a Planxty concert to those anyway interested in that type of music. If you do travel to Belfast, though, be sure to bring good directions, as relying on signage is not an option (and of course, if male, you’re not allowed to ask for directions!).

So out I run, and plead my case. I was amazed they even stopped to listen, let alone say OK, but to stick on a visitor’s permit (which I completely forgot to do in the first case). I thanked them kindly and they removed the partial clamp. Kudos! I for one am impressed and hope that this is not a rare case!

Then there was the jeep behind me who went came back a couple of minutes later (no more than a couple after the clampers had left), bought a ticket and then rang (presumably the clamping office) to give out. A garda arrived and left again (presumably because he was having none of it).. over an hour later your man rings again, and pays. I have his CC number and address now!! He used the speaker phone up at full volume, and up to his ear .. go figure. In case you’re feeling any pity towards him.. don’t .. he had parked there all morning and tried to pull the wool over the clampers (and presumably the garda).

/vent over