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Comment by JacobAldridge | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that HN traffic seems fairly low quality (assuming Page Visits and Time on Site as measurements of quality - only Stumbleupon and Countermotions provide lower figures on those metrics). Perhaps this demonstrates that HN visitors read the article, then return here to discuss rather than exploring the site.

View on HN

Time On Site is a metric that compares the delta between timestamps of 2 different page views. If someone comes in reads a blog post then leaves, Google Analytics counts it as 0:00, and a bounce.

HN readers are more likely to read a blog post then hit back (and maybe comment). The bounce rate and TOS aren't a valuable metric for this audience.

Could it have something to do with the reading speed of users?

I know that I read a lot faster than some of my old school friends. And not as fast as some old uni friends. But I'd guess the average HN reader was a fair bit faster reader than your average reader.

Though compared to the your average reader, I suspect Fred Wilson's are probably faster than average... so are HN visitors faster readers than average avc readers?

Original article: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/01/rss-continued.html

On the Internet, reading speed becomes less important than the level of skimming. Even a very fast reader, if they really read an article, are going to be "slower" than most who approach the article, I think.

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