Michael Heilemann, author of "George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It's Okay," has published an intriguing analysis of visitors sent to his article by top blogs. By tracking how long they stayed at the lengthy piece, a picture of engagement emerges that isn't reflected by raw traffic stats. Hacker News, Boing Boing and Daring Fireball sent the most engaged readers.
Reddit users go straight for the punchline and bail immediately. One might expect the same of Facebook users, but no, among the visitors that hang around, they rank third!
Likewise I would have expected MetaFilter readers to hang around and Boing Boing users to quickly move along; but actually the opposite is the case. Another surprise, and a welcome one, is that the venerable John Gruber of Daring Fireball's readership, the largest of them all, is considerably more patient than that of io9, a dedicated science fiction site.
An apt quote springs to mind: "Arrrggghhnnn. Grrrhn!"
Lessons of the Chewbacca Incident [Binary Bonsai via Waxy]
