View counters - accurate?

[michael_hohner]

Are the view counters of uploaded images accurate? I don't think so. I

have photos with 1 comment and 1 rating but 0 views. How can that be?

[pmj]

See Brian's answer in <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=003bvN">this thread</a>

[mottershead]

The view counters, as I said in the thread that Patrick pointed to, have never been really accurate. For technical reasons, some of our web servers can't count the views. So the view count has always been an undercount of the actual views.

 

Then, even on the servers where the counting is happening, the count is not updated in real-time. This is because those updates are expensive, in that there are frequently hundreds of thousands of views per day. Our database is optimized for reads, and updates are expensive. So we batch the updates to the view counters and only do them periodically. Until recently, the update cycle was every four hours. But we realized that the four-hourly updates were slowing down the server quite a bit at peak times. So now we only do the updates every 24 hours, strangling our system in the middle of the Boston night.

[cakeller98]

ohhhhhh.... Thanks... I was wondering ;)

[foghillcafe]

I've built and run sites with millions of hits a day, with huge database back-ends (dating sites if you must ask)on linux running relatively simple hardware (3 boxes), where the type of search done required a lot more juice than updating counters. I cannot believe that it would take a whole day to update the counters, like it was the case today (18th) (I know that this is the case because none of the counters on any of my photos movesd, not even the newest one). I think this is a big lack of technical savy sad to say. The photos are real nice, but this is hurts this site's image. As not counting views? How can that be, if the page is loaded, how can be not counted, your running tcl scripts (seamingly), just have this script update whatever you using to store data. Anyway, just cannot believe this kind of technical performance.

[mottershead]

Jean-Yves, I hope you found your little comment on our technical performance satisfying to express. If it increases your satisfaction in using the site, please feel free to criticize anything you want. Perhaps you will find sufficient brain-damaged things on the site, and will get so much pleasure from criticizing them, that you might be motivated to become a subscriber.

 

If you do decide to let us know what else needs fixing, you might take the time actually to read what we write about the various technical problems. I did not say that it takes a whole day to update the counters. I said that when we were updating the counters every four hours, it used a lot of resources and slowed down the system noticably while it was running. Some of those four-hour updates were at peak times. We therefore have changed it to update once every twenty-four hours>

 

I will add that the person running the site (me) didn't write the view-counting software, and I don't think it should be consuming the resources it does, either. Updating the view count on 20,000 photos every few hours shouldn't be so expensive. I am in the process of determining why this is so.

[mstrada]

Brian: What a snotty response to a criticism of the site. I didn't think the tone of his post was half as offensive as yours. If he was wrong, or if he wrongly construed your earlier statement, explain why and move on. But a response like that really just makes you (and therefore the site) look defensive and impolite. This is a site that asks its users for money -- service-for-fee providers should be a little more sensitive in their customer relations.

 

(On that note, the best possible response would have been polite and responsive, concluding with a gentle reminder that he has no "gift" next to his name and before he complains about the technical performance of the site, he ought to put his money where his mouth is.)

[mstrada]

Brian: Heh heh, now I that I look back, I see you did include a nudge to subscribe. Never mind about that. I still think the several sarcastic sentences of your response were unnecessary.

[foghillcafe]

I've been involved with customers for a long time, and no matter how wrong I think they are, they are still right, they control the money, they can pull it out at any time... And even when they have not yet subscribed, you cannot alienate them; an unsatisfied customer is real bad publicity. And that may be tough, but thats the way it is. I am sorry for stating the obvious, but this is why I feel; from a purely marketing point of view, your response was unproductive.

 

The question should be: why does he not want to subscribe; i should not be hearing: put up or shut up. I have subscribed elsewhere (many a time) by the way... When in the trial period there are issues, do you really part with your money (even "perfect" internet site have problem getting subscriptions). Imagine, your having a test drive and your shifter fails 1 time on 10, or the spedometer only gives correct readings once a day. Of course, this is an extreme example, but it perfectly expresses my feeling.

 

If in fact there is too much work and not enough resources to fix all problems, maybe transforming it into a community project (like the open source movement) would help. You would still need subscriptions, but since the site would be better, the retention/subscription rate would be better.

 

I know this will probably be seen again as a whine from some non-subscriber. But I do feel that a brain storming about way to get the subscriber/retention rate up should be in the card.

 

JYD - professional whiner / director of technology ;-)

[larry n.]

Brian and Jean-Yves,

 

Perhaps the reason Jean-Yves is having trouble understanding the priorities this site has, is that he's comparing it to the dating site he used to run.

 

Most of us are not concerned about getting an up to the hour update on how many people looked at our photos. Once a day is more than enough for me.

 

I'm much more concerned about the process of getting photos in front of people. Why is it so many of my photos get exactly 6 ratings? Are they pulled from public viewing once they've received 6 ratings? There has got to be a better way to do this.

[pmj]

Naji,

 

You might want to read Brian's response <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0049ti">in this thread</a>; I'm sure it will clear things up.