Cash used to be king, then thanks to Bill Gates, content was king for a while, but we’re now in the information age and information is now king having deposed the other two in a bloodless coup.
And I, for one, welcome our new factual overlord.
Further evidence of this monarchical shift is the daily stats on 6000 miles…, your favourite go to blog for all things… well… for all things. We can like to do eclectic.
Here’s a prime example – which were the pages that people looked at most on here yesterday?
The big news in SA yesterday was the State Capture Report. Everyone wanted to read the 355 pages for themselves, seeking possible confirmation that our President had been acting improperly, unethically, in a corrupt manner, and generally taking the country for a ride for the benefit of himself and a few of his cronies. (Confirmation was duly provided.)
The website of the office of the Public Protector was overloaded, so I helped out by uploading a PDF of the report on here. And lots of people viewed that post. I would count this is an information post.
In second place yesterday was people accessing the front page of the blog. Simply typing “www.6000.co.za” into their URL bar and looking at what was on offer there. It’s loads. Loads.
Third place goes to the SARS minus number post. Also helpful information. SARS is our taxation service, and once you’ve submitted your tax return, they drop you an email with a number in the OWED TO YOU box at the bottom. Often this number has a minus sign in front of it. But who owes whom in that case? People are confused and thus that post, which explains all, is regularly up in the daily top 3.
Fourth, more reference material. For the morning and evening rush hours, the barriers at Kenilworth station in Cape Town remain closed for a prolonged period of time. But what are those times? I posted them, and people regularly click through to find out.
Fifth “Stop Zuma“, probably related to the State Capture thing and this tweet, bizarrely suggesting that the DA’s election campaign from 7½ years ago could now be considered a raging success (if you conveniently ignore its repeated failures and the unfolding national disaster in the intervening period). (And the fact that Zuma has actually not been stopped.) (But otherwise, sure.)
More informative posts at sixth and seventh. Helpfully sharing which towns the two or three letter codes on Western Cape numberplates belong to. And those all-important Level 3 Water Restrictions for drought-stricken Cape Town.
The remainder of the Top 10 is filled with yesterday’s post in which I was tacitly described as being “very obviously common” and “probably something perfectly frightful like a Primitive Methodist”, Tuesday’s sharing of those wondrous aerial photographs, and -perhaps somewhat unexpectedly – images of a land crab from September 2010.
Nice, but uninformative.
My point stands though, in that while far less than half of the posts on here are “reference” or “information” posts, those posts still fill a disproportionate number of slots on my daily most popular post rankings.
People like to know things.
Maybe I should go full reference? After all, that’s what Wikipedia did and I believe that they are ever so popular.
Except that popularity isn’t why 6000 miles… exists. And it’s a good job too, to be honest. So I think that I’ll just keep sharing the good stuff, passing comment on silly people, venting my spleen on occasion – and making that all important information available where necessary, in an effort to make your day just a little bit better.
Don’t like it? Feel free to demand a full refund.
