It's been awhile since I've posted demographic information about this publication's readers, so thought I'd do so again today; I do this every so often as a little service to potential advertisers, so that they can see objectively for themselves what potential audience they might reach by patronizing us. (Don't forget, by the way, that the purchase of a quarter-page ad or larger in our print version gets you a free month of web advertising; click here to see ITG's rates.) All numbers and screenshots come from the third-party service Google Analytics, except for the Technorati numbers listed at the end of this entry.

So as you can see in the above two shots, since this blog opened it has now had a little over 9,000 absolutely unique visitors, and that those visitors have checked out a total of 14,100 pages here. This ratio is in line with what I found in the last report: that roughly half of ITG's readers are coming by the front page each day to read the latest, while the other half are clicking on one extra page while here (more often than not the ITG Lexicon of Second Life Slang). If you accept, then, that another 10 percent of ITG's readers are keeping up to date through the RSS feed, that makes for a grand total of 10,000 unique readers since first opening.

Then as this chart shows, ITG is averaging what I consider a great retention rate of 35 percent, or over one in every three new visitors. What this means is that somewhere around 3,500 people are reading ITG on at least a semi-regular basis, either weekly or daily or through syndication; plus, that out of every three new visitors to ITG, at least one is going to stay around and become a regular reader. Thank you; that's a much higher number than the international average!

For those who run other publications, or are curious about what other blogs have the most sway over their readers, here are the top 10 sites who have referred new visitors since ITG opened, along with exactly how many new readers came because of them:

1) Google searches: 3,239
2) Miss Snark, Literary Agent: 2,147
3) Boing Boing: 792
4) Second Life Insider: 446
5) Official Second Life website: 300
6) Gwyneth Llewelyn: 217
7) del.icio.us recommendations: 216
8) Reuters: 149
9) Clickable Culture: 100
10) New World Notes: 76

The number-one search at Google, by the way, to inspire people to click through to ITG, remains "Second Life sex" -- as true now as the day we opened! You little perverts!

As far as ITG's global reach, there's been a big change since the last report: Google is now reporting that this blog has been read in a total of 98 countries, spanning every corner of the world and every continent except Antarctica. Wow! As far as how the actual numbers break down, here is a quick overview of approximate totals:

Top ten: US (10,000); UK (1,250); Canada (600); Australia (350); Germany (275); Netherlands (180); Spain (130); France (120); Italy (100); Belgium (85)

11-25: New Zealand (60); Japan (60); Sweden (60); Finland (50); Norway (50); Switzerland (40); China (40); Ireland (40); Singapore (40); India (35); Brazil (30); South Africa (30); Denmark (30); Malaysia (30); Mexico (20)

Interesting places with ten to twenty readers: Russia, Portugal, Thailand, Turkey, Greece, Korea, Chile, Croatia, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, the Czech Republic

Interesting places with five or less readers: Barbados, Macedonia, Morocco, Iceland, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Kuwait, Ukraine, Iran, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Romania, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Slovenia, Egypt, Panama, Taiwan

As expected, the top four countries (as well as 12,000 out of ITG's 14,000 total page visits) are all English-speaking nations, with Americans counting for 70 percent of the blog's total readership; what's interesting to me, though, is that Germans account for almost the same amount of readers as Australians, and far eclipse such English-speaking countries as New Zealand and Ireland. (Actually, the only reason I find that interesting is that I've toured Germany twice myself, and have a real obsession with the country; see my real-life travel books Das Ist Kool and Ach Du Heilige Scheisse! for more.)

And as far as Technorati, which I consider the one site out there with the most reliable information about blog popularity: they're now listing ITG as the 14th most popular blog on the planet, when it comes to blogs either exclusively about Second Life or about Second Life in relation to other MMOs. (This is a different number, by the way, than blogs that simply list Second Life as one of many subjects they cover; under that definition, ITG is the 19th most popular blog.) For what it's worth, in overall terms Technorati is listing ITG as the 58,000th most popular blog on the planet regarding any subject at all.

Anyway, so those are the latest numbers; and maybe you'll find that our rates to reach these people are in line with your current advertising budget. Hmm, maybe! Don't forget, ITG has such a small roster of advertisers right now, I am more than happy to do customized work for new clients, including redesigning your ad to custom-fit our size requirements, as well as including you in future live events. You should always feel free to drop me a line at inthegrid [at] gmail.com if you'd like to talk more, or IM me while in the grid at "Miller Copeland."