Main Stats

• Visits – 3,550,071 (2,993,948) – 19% annual increase
• Visitors – 746,662 (718,046)
• Pageviews – 7,082,230 (6,487,007)

Country of Visitors

1. NZ 84.3%
2. Australia 4.8%
3. US 3.0%
4. UK 2.5%
5. Canada 0.6%
6. Singapore 0.3%
7. Japan 0.3%
8. Germany 0.3%
9. India 0.2%

City of Visitors

1. Auckland 37.2%
2. Wellington 23.3%
3. Christchurch 8.5%
4. Hamilton 2.5%
5. Dunedin 2.0%
6. Sydney 1.6%
7. Palm Nth 1.6%
8. Mechanics Bay 1.5%
9. Melbourne 1.4%
10. Nelson 1.0%

Browsers

1. IE 37.0% (-8.3%)
2. Firefox 26.2% (-4.1%)
3. Safari 18.1% (+6.1%)
4. Chrome 15.1% (+4.8%)
5. Android 1.1%
6. Opera 0.9%

Operating Systems

1. Windows 73.5% (-8.2%)
2. Mac 14.0% (+1.3%)
3. iPhone 4.4% (+2.3%)
4. iPad 3.4% (++2.7%)
5. Linux 1.5% (-0.1%)

Hosts (excluding ISPs)

1. VUW 21,264
2. MOJ 15,779
3. MSD 10,865
4. Massey 9,306
5. APN 6,930
6. Air NZ 5,707
7. Fonterra 5,279
8. Treasury 4,798
9. MOE 4,755
10. NZ Post 4,500
11. Westpac 4,028
12. Ak City Council – 3,759
13. TVNZ 3,636

Access

1. 35.0% search
2. 29.3% referral
3. 35.7% direct

Search Terms (excluding Kiwiblog and my name)

1. Cactus Kate
2. Cathy Odgers
3. Malcolm Harbrow
4. Whale Oil
5. Matthew Hooton
6. Erin Leigh
7. Labour List
8. VSM bill
9. Liz Shaw
10. Mana Party
11. Kate Sutton
12. Owen Glenn
13. Whaleoil
14. Vote for Change
15. The spirit level

Referrals

1. No Minister
2. Whale Oil
3. Facebook
4. NZ Herald
5. Dim Post
6. Keeping Stock
7. Cactus Kate
8. Scoop
9. The Standard
10. NZ Conservative

Also currently Kiwiblog has had:

• 21,188 posts, of which approx 2,800 were made in 2011
• 790,704 comments, of which approx 140,000 were made in 2011
• 4,020 tags
• 7,514 registered commenters

• 38,110 unique visitors
• 105,531 visits – of which 10,000 are to the mobile version
• 213,626 page views

Browsers

• IE 33%
• Firefox 24%
• Safari 19%
• Chrome 18%
• Android 2%

Operating Systems

• Windows 70%
• Mac 13%
• iPhone 5%
• iPad 5%
• Android 2%
• Linux 1%

Top Visit Sources

1. Ministry of Justice
2. Datacom
3. VUW
4. MSD
5. APN
6. Air NZ
7. Massey Uni
8. Min of Ed
9. Westpac
10. Cant Uni

Top Referrers

1. Whale Oil
2. No Minister
3. Facebook
4. NZ Herald
5. t.co
6. Keeping Stock
7. Cactus Kate
8. Trade Me
9. Stuff
10. Scoop

Top Search Terms

1. Kiwiblog
2. David Farrar
3. Erin Leigh
4. Bradley Ambrose
5. Cactus Kate
6. Kate Sutton
7. Supplementary Member
8. Matthew Hooton
9. Labour List
10. Who is the child abusing comedian

Top Pages Visited

1. So much for a panel of undecided voters
2. Blogroll
3. Caption Contest 32
4. KB back up
5. General Debate 21 Nov
6. A vote for NZ First is a vote for a new election
7. Labour’s campaign hits full stride
8. Must read blogs
9. Goff savaged
10. General Debate 20 November 2011

THIS WEEK ON BACK BENCHES—THE ELECTION PREVIEW: Watch Wallace Chapman, Damian Christie, the Back Benches Panel and special guests discuss the week’s hottest topics!

GOOD TIMES, BAD TIMES: The Campaign is less than a week away. What have been the highs & lows of this campaign? Who has been effective in getting their message across? Who has failed? What have been the big issues? How would you rate each of the campaigns? Which party has surprised you?

TEMPEST IN A TEACUP: There have been a few scandals in this campaign—with New Zealand even getting their own Tea Party. We will be discussing the scandals—the tea-gate? The damaged hoardings and the carpetbaggers. How much of an impact will they have on the results? And were the “scandals” really scandals?

Join us for a night of LIVE pub politics from the Backbencher Pub: Wednesday, 23RD of November. Our Panel: David Farrar of Kiwiblog.co.nz, Victoria University Lecturer Ana Gilling, Morgan Godfery of Mauistreet.blogspot.com, and Mark Unsworth of Saunders Unsworth.

Back Benches screens on Wednesdays at 9.05pm with encore screenings on Thursdays at 9.05am and 1.05pm, Saturdays at 10.05pm, Sundays at 10.05am and 2.05pm – TVNZ 7

Many people have also commented on the book’s timing, including prominent blogger David Farrar who said it was “appalling in itself” and that “Wishart has chosen to market the book during the coronial inquest into the death of the twins”.

In a statement to ONE News, Wishart also said the book’s timing was “appalling”.

However, he added it was not intentional and that “the only positive is that it has created a strong national debate on child abuse”. The story broke after ONE News contacted Wishart following a tip-off.

Wishart said it was not true that the publicity for the book, which is being published by his Howling at the Moon company and is due for release at the end of the month, was deliberately timed to coincide with the inquest.

My guest bloggers do not post often, so it is an easy mistake to make. But those quotes in questions come from Jadis, not me. If you scroll down the main page, you’ll see her listed as the author for the posting on 29 June at 10.26 am.

The site doesn’t list authors on individual archive pages, only the main page. I have on my to do list to get that changed.

But what I am going to try, is to see if there are any readers interested in helping out with Kiwiblog. These are not paid roles, but volunteer roles. A chance to contribute, and if you really want have a fancy title

These are the roles which I have identified as most useful to me for now.

Sub-Editor

• Do regular posts of political events – who’s on Backbenches, Q+A, The Nation as we receive them, and iPredict newsletter updates.
• Set up the General Debate to appear at 8 am for each day
• Correct any obvious typos in my posts
• Approve any comments held in moderation (normally from new posters)
• Clear the spam queue
• Embed a Daily Dilbert Cartoon
• Feed quotes into the Quotes Collection

Data Monkey

After someone who is a whiz on Excel. Don’t need to know all the fancy advanced features, but is good with data. I’d like to do more data analysis on Kiwiblog, but don’t have as much time to to do it all myself.

An example of what I am after is the planned series of posts on Electoral Reform. One of the posts will be on how porportional each of the five systems are. So what I am after is someone who can use the Gallagher Index to calculate the proportionality of the result for each election from 1996 to 2008, and the average over the five elections.

Then ideally to also model what the results of each election would have been under SM 90/30 and FPP, and to also calculate the Gallagher Index for each of those scenarios. Then one can compare the average proportionality (or not) of FPP, SM and MMP.

None of this is particularly difficult – it just takes time to enter in the data for 5 elections, create alternate results for 10 further scenarios, and then calculate the index for each.

Cartoonist

Kiwblog used to have a regular cartoonist. If you want to take up the spot, send me a couple of cartoons.

Photographer

We have the wonderful nature photos by Chtonoid every Friday. But what I am after is someone in Wellington and probably someone in Auckland who can attend significant political events (marches, rallies, demos etc) and take some photos for Kiwiblog.

So if you are interested in helping, e-mail me.

Readers voted and selected the Fred Hollows Foundation. That was great. I met with them, and with Give-a-little who kindly offered to be the donor system. I also had various readers offer to help.

And then I got busy, and remained busy. And months went by and I hadn’t had the time to properly organise online widgets for donating, arranging a schedule of events such as debates and quiz nights etc. So then I though maybe I’ll make them the 2011 charity instead of 2010. But I still never managed to find the time, and then the earthquakes struck and that wasn’t the time to try fundraising for another cause, and then we’re getting close to the election and I realised that realistically I had over-committed and couldn’t  deliver what I wanted to.

Part of the plan was that I would donate 10% of the gross advertising income of Kiwiblog to Fred Hollows Foundation. Today I donated $10,000 to the Fred Hollows Foundation, as my contribution towards their wonderful live changing work. And for those mathematicians out there, no that isn’t 10% of the gross advertising income – it is a much much higher percentage.  But I feel it is what I should do to make good on what I hoped we could achieve.

At some stage I would still like to try using this online community to organise fundraising events for charity, such as celebrtiy debates and the like. But realistically that would need a part-time organiser, not someone with around four jobs like I have.

Anyway the point of this post is not to highlight my donation, but to encourage yours. if you enjoy reading Kiwiblog every day, and appreciate the thousands of hours that has gone into doing 50+ posts a week, then you can show your appreciation by donating to the Fred Hollows Foundation. They are one of those charities where even a modest donations can make a huge difference, because in some of the countries they work, they can restore sight for just $25.

You can donate to them at this link, or by clicking on the widget at the top of the left sidebar. Please do so if you can.

1. Littlle fat shit i will return
2. david Farrars blog is a gay site
3. kiwi blog encourages CHINESE TAKEOVERS OF NZ BUSNESS
4. Your latest post was pathetic for a fat whimp like you,is that the best????? opps pure national arse licking, well arse licking

Very strange, my last post wasn’t even on politics, but on an upcoming film I want to see.

The scary thing is that he gets a vote.

Anyway if he keeps e-mailing me I’ll publish his name and e-mail address.  And I think his temporary ban is very close to becoming a life-time ban.

• Tweet this book
• Kidsplay – Monkey Blogs
• WordPress Security
• SEO for WordPress
• Evolving the News
• BuddyPress – WordPress social networking comes of age
• The future of blogging etc.
• Scaling WordPress for Performance

I’m also talking about some of the challenges of running a heavily trafficked blog on WordPress.

Dear David Farrar,

Recently you banned me from your Kiwiblog website stating:

[rest of e-mail deleted by DPF due to copyright complaint by the troll]

I am unsure of the legal requirements for public forums and will be seeking some legal advice concerning the matter. If I am not reinstated as a blogger on your site, I will undertake a test case against Kiwiblog for limiting peoples right to voice an opinion on a public forum. I will also inform the media of such action. …

[rest of e-mail deleted by DPF due to copyright complaint by the troll]

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Todd.

You know if Todd has stopped his e-mail with his apology, I probably would have relented and let him back in after a period of suspension.

But threaten me with legal action for your right to comment on my blog. Well fuck that. First of all you show yourself to be very very stupid – my blog is not a public forum. It is my private property, and I allow people the privilege of commenting here at my discretion. I would greatly enjoy any court case where someone tries to gain a legal right to comment on my blog – it would be hilarious.

Todd also threatened to expose what I did in banning him to the media. Well I’ve done that for him. For those who wonder why Todd got booted, feel free to wade through the 280 comments in this thread, especially from around 5.30 pm onwards .

First time I have had someone threaten to sue me for their “right” to comment here. I really didn’t think there was anyone that stupid around.

UPDATE: Todd says he was going to expose me to the media, but when I blogged his complaint letter so the media could see it, he then decided he did not want it public and filed a copyright complaint with my ISP. Hence I have removed most of his e-mail from the post. The remaining sections fall under fair use provisions.

So being a big WordPress fan, I’m really looking forward to attending WordCamp NZ on Sat 19 and Sun 20 February. It is being held at Te Papa.

The guest speakers are a mixture of local and international, including John Ford from Automattic – the company behind WordPress. Local speakers include Julie Starr, Lance Wiggs and Richard McManus. I’m also talking for a bit about the challenges of a blog with over 600,000 comments on it. There’s also sessions commercially focused such as Search Engine Optimisation.

You can register to attend on the wordcamp website. Cost is only $85 for the weekend.

I’m hoping I’ll come out of it with some good ideas about ways I can make Kiwiblog better.

Someone is stalking Rex Widerstrom as his name is in 9th place for search terms and the NZEI death sqauds are hunting Peter McKeefry who is in 11th place.

Very amusing that we have a tie for 21st place with 179 hits each between “donkey sex” and “trevor mallard labour leader’. Is it 358 random searches or one person searching for both terms 179 times?

He announced last week that he is going to stop blogging. This has made news not just in the blogosphere, but also in the mainstream media.

Looking at some of the reasons why Iain has quit, I can understand his decision. There are times when it does get pretty challenging.

Well, I am afraid this is the blogpost where I tell you that I am giving up blogging. This decision has been coming for some time and was nearly made a month ago, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it then. Well, today I can.

There’s no single reason, but let me try to explain as best I can why I can no longer blog in the way I have been doing over the last five years. First of all, let me say what it’s NOT about. It’s got nothing to do with the Conservatives being in power. There’s this myth that blogging in government is less interesting than in opposition. I’ve never bought that argument. I think I have been quite open in making clear when I think the coalition have got things wrong, but I accept that is not the perception, and probably never will be.

I agree it is not less fun in Government. I thought it would be, but I am finding no shortage of things to blog on – in fact my challenge is the topics I miss out due to lack of time or resource.

I’ve been thinking of going through the year’s posts and counting the number of times I have criticised or disagreed with the Government. It’s several score at least.

The truth is, I no longer enjoy blogging and I think that this has been evident for a few months now to my readers. I hate the backbiting that goes along with it. I hate the character assassination that is permanently present.

I’ve always said I’ll give up if I don’t enjoy it. But unlike Iain I don’t get too bothered by the haters out there. The more someone spews venom at me, the more I think that I must be doing a good job for them to feel so threatened. If someone I respect criticises me, I take that very seriously – but they tend to do so in non-personal terms.

So I can’t see myself ever giving up because of the haters. Quite the opposite – it encourages you even more.

I no longer enjoy the pressure of feeling I have to churn out four or five pieces every day. I used to enjoy sitting in front of the TV at home in the evenings and writing blogposts at the same time. I can’t do that any longer as I am on the radio every weekday evening. And when I am in the office during the day I have two companies to run. Something has to give.

This is where I can totally empathise with Iain. Once upon a time the blog was not an “obligation”, just fun. But I do feel a sense of (mainly self-imposed) obligation to try and do around 8 – 10 posts a day, to cover off major issues and to be topical.

There are days and weeks when I am exhausted from trying to manage the blog, actually earn money from Curia, contribute to InternetNZ’s activities, do various media obligations, and a near non stop range of meetings and speaking arrangements.

Even getting up at 5 am doesn’t leave enough time, and friends have to put up with me trying to catch up on a backlog of e-mails while watching DVDs on a Friday night.

To cope with what will be an even busier in 2011, I will be soliciting some volunteers to help with certain aspects of the blog. I’ll provide details in January. I’m also going to learn the value of the word “no” and start declining speaking requests – not all of them, but some of them.

And if I am honest, I now feel that my blogging is having a negative effect on various aspects of my business and broadcasting life.

I estimate I could probably double my income, if I gave up blogging. Partly due to the extra time I would have to do business development – in six years of business, I’ve never responded to an RFP or solicited a client. It has all been word of mouth. Also the blog makes me too risky a choice for many government sector clients.

I’m working 9am to 10pm five days a week. I enjoy it. I relish it. I thrive on it. I’m running a very successful publishing company which is, I believe, on the brink of great success. I’ve achieved a lifetime’s ambition of having my own daily radio talk show. I am not about to put either of those things at risk. And frankly, I’m not going to put my health at risk either. As I said above, something has to give in this life I am now leading, and I am afraid it is the blog.

The health factor is real also. I left Parliament, partly because of the insane hours. They’re not as bad as when I was at Parliament, but it is a long way from a 40 hour week.

But at the end of the day, my challenge is to get a better balance, not to give up blogging. I’ve actually been debating politics online since 1996, and blogging is just a continuation of that. If I can get the balance right, I hope to blog until I am happily (or grumpily) retired.

I have also decided to give up all party political activities, as they too have hampered aspects of my business and broadcasting career in the past. I am, and will remain, a Conservative supporter, but that’s as far as it goes.

I made that decision after the 2005 election, and it was the best thing I have ever done. I will attend the odd party conference if it is interesting, but have managed to avoid any roles or offices.

The only party role that might interest me in the future would be on the Board of Directors, but I suspect it would be incompatible with my blogging as you can’t really have a Party Director criticising a National-led Government, even mildly.

Finally, I’d like to thank all my readers for sticking with me through good times and bad over the last five years. To the many enemies I have made along the way, I’ll just say in a very Nixon-esque manner, just rejoice in the fact that you won’t have me to kick around any longer. For the moment, anyway. For the most part, I have enjoyed the blogging experience and made a lot of friends through it.

Iain’s departure is a real loss to the UK blogosphere. I always enjoyed his blog, as he was very reasonable and fair. And it was a great way to keep up with UK politics.

• MP of the Year – John Key wins easily with 61% iof the votes
• Labour MP of the Year – Grant Robertson wins with 43% of the vote, double the next Labour MP – David Cunliffe
• National MP of the Year – Steven Joyce pips Judith Collins by 2 votes – 166 to 164.
• Minor Party MP of the Year – John Boascawen wins with 36% but a creditable second place to Metiria Turei on 26%
• Press Gallery Journalist of the Year – a close contest byt Guyon Espiner wins with 55% to 45% for Duncan Garner
• Public Servant of the Year – Bob Parker on 45% edges out the Auditor-General on 37%

Congrats to all the winners, and finalists.

MP of the Year – a choice between PM John Key, Police & Corrections Minister Judith Collins and Health Minister Tony Ryall

Labour MP of the Year – the four most popular nominees were David Cunliffe, Phil Goff, Trevor Mallard an newbie Grant Robertson

National MP of the Year – a choice between four ministers – Judith Collins, Steven Joyce, Tony Ryall and new Minister Hekia Parata

Minor Party MP of the Year – a diverse range with United Future’s Peter Dunne, Green co-leader Metiria Turei and Rodney Hide and John Boscawen from ACT

Press Gallery Journalist of the Year – it’s a two way contest between the two TV political editors – One’s Guyon Espiner v Three’s Duncan Garner

Public Servant of the Year – Law Commission President Sir Geoffrey Palmer competes with Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker and Auditor-General Lyn Provost

A number of bloggers back in 2007 gave permission for Get Frank to to use some of their posts on their site. At least one blogger was told:

as our adver­tis­ing grows we will be offer­ing all con­trib­u­tors the chance to take 50% of all adver­tis­ing rev­enue from their page(s) on a CPM basis.

I was one of those bloggers who gave permission. I can’t recall whether or not my e-mail made any mention of revenue sharing. I suspect I said yes on the grounds of liking to help a new site.

But Get Frank has gone on to be commercially successful, and the Bloggers Union (which is compulsory – like student associations) has been saying that those who provide the content should be getting a share of the revenue, which has been declined. So Whale has gone to war in his normal subtle way.

By coincidence, I had noticed around six months ago that Get Frank were still using my content and I made a mental note to myself to email them at some stage and say I think it is time to stop using my content, especially as I do get advertising revenue on my own site. But it was not a priority so I had not got around to it.

This flare up has been the catalyst for me to do so, and hence the permission has been terminated.

Cactus Kate has blogged on this also.

I blog primarily because I enjoy having a say. I do make some “pocket money” from advertising but on an hourly rate it would come to less than the minimum wage. So my motivation is not commercial. But I’d rather increase the money I made from my content, than have others do so, and receive nothing at all myself.

If Get Frank (or anyone) are interested in a commercial relationship in the future, my door is open.

“According to Kiwiblog and Whale Oil, the guy leading the charge is a Labour Party candidate”

It was a group having lunch. I resisted the urge to introduce me, and just kept the quiet satisfaction to myself.

You can vote in the left hand sidebar – there is a poll for each of the nine Ministers. Go and have your say.