I want to thank everyone (all 269 of you) who answered my 2008 reader survey. It was definitely appreciated. I thought I'd share the results, both the numbers, my thoughts, and my plans for the rest of the year. (Holy smokes, one whole month is gone already?)
First, the general questions. I asked how often people visited my blog. 110 of you visit daily, 62 weekly, and 3 almost never. (I know who are you and will be hunting you down!) 94 of you visit when you see something interesting in the RSS feed which makes sense. That's typically the only time I visit blogs.
The second question, "Your content typically does/does not interest me", was probably a bit silly. 261 said the content did interest them. It is probably fair to assume regular visitors are - well - regular because they like the articles.
The most important question was about the level of my content. 222 of you said my content was right on target for your current technical skills. 29 said it was a bit high and 18 said it was a bit low. That to me means that I'm hitting the sweet spot.
The next question involved contests. I was a bit surprised to find that 111 people responded 'Meh' to the idea of my contents while 155 enjoyed them. (3 people said they were a waste of time.) Almost half of you then don't really seem to care about the contests, but slightly more than half do. Contests are a lot of work. So my take from this is... run a contest or two this year, but maybe focus on the smaller contests which are a bit easier to run. I'm thinking of something along the lines of my Lemonade Stand which was a short contest and a bit easy to judge. (I've got an idea already!)
In terms of what you want to see more articles on - it was a pretty wide range. I saw a lot of requests for more Ajax/CF stuff, which is good since I've been covering a lot of jQuery lately, and have been getting a lot of Ajax questions sent in, so that works out well for me. (Don't know if I've made it clear or not, but your questions to me really help fill the blog out. Please keep them coming.)
I saw multiple requests for Flex, frameworks, OOP, and other high end stuff. "High end stuff" can sometimes be a bit difficult to blog about since sometimes the subject matter is so specific it isn't really going to be of interest to many readers. These articles can be difficult to compress into 'blog sized' bites as well. I'll also admit to being scared. Yes, the Jedi gets scared. ;) Speaking on advanced topics means I'm more likely to screw up. I'm working on getting more comfortable talking/writing at that level so hopefully I can get over my fear soon! To get a bit more specific, I do want to blog some more on ColdSpring. I think it would be a great followup to my last series on Transfer.
There were a few requests for me to speak more on Groovy and what I'm doing at Broadchoice. In general I blog about that at the Broadchoice Blog. While I write there from time to time, the real high end stuff is being posted by Brian, Sean, and Joe, so definitely check it out if you haven't done so yet.
As for what I should blog less on... well... this was a bit of a shock. I saw around 10 responses saying I should blog less on Spry. Now - I'm really digging jQuery a lot. Seriously. But Spry was my first Ajax love. My gateway drug if you will back into the world of JavaScript. I still think Spry is the easiest way to get Ajax-based data onto a web page, especially for those who may not be hardcore JavaScript hackers. Much like ColdFusion is one of the best ways to build web sites, especially for those of us without degrees in Comp Sci. Oh, and for the two people who told me to stop mentioning Paris Hilton. Sorry - I can't. I know, deep in my heart, that she is a ColdFusion programmer at heart. (Ok, maybe not...)
Anyway, I hope this makes sense. I rambled on for quite a bit longer than I intended. I also appreciate the comments about CFLib, the ColdFusion Cookbook, and ColdFusionBloggers. Thanks for the feedback, and definitely do not hesitate to let me know if you see any way I can improve!