- Joined
- Aug 23, 2009
- Messages
- 21,893
- Reaction score
- 39,710
Happy New Year!
Once again, we are here in the new year and new decade of 2020! Thank you very much for your continued patronage and support of our site, Tokyo Adult Guide!
To begin, please be sure to check our previous new year messages such as 2019, here:
https://tokyoadultguide.com/threads/2-6-2019-reflecting-on-2018-and-moving-forward-in-2019.21762/
For TAG, 2019 remained to be a static year with just small issues scattered throughout but nothing terribly concerning. We managed to continue the trend of attracting new members at a rate of about ~820 new members a month with some months peaking at 1,000+.
Overall participation among members remained static as well. We have been trying to find a way to get those shy lurkers to get more engaged with other readers. There is still a huge unnecessary stigma about being involved with mature, adult topics. We understand that members may not want their partner, family or friends to know what they are doing, but there's no shame in being an adult and wanting to expand those horizons.
Our workload at TAG remained high for most of the year. I keep saying that I'll add staff to help, but each time I think I've found someone, they let me down and trust is lost. Karen and Meiji have been stalwarts all these years and have yet to let me down. A good percentage of our members are stalwarts as well, which we appreciate very much! However, the truth is, I need an extra pair of hands to really help things along. The day-to-day operations that you see publicly are only one part of it all... there's a nearly equal workload happening in the back-end area which encompasses the support desk, account management & overall site ops support. I am resolved to find someone who's trustworthy and generally interested in gaining some real community management experience on a social platform.
Other feedback for this year included references to our heavy-handed moderation and what was called archaic censorship. The main problem with these sorts of complaints is that those folks lodging such complaints are either new members or those who don't really do much other than read without a valid account. A significant portion of TAG cannot be seen by a new member or a guest reader. Your participation and contributions nets you a reputation and eventually would be recognized for consideration for an upgraded status. (No, you can't buy it...) Additionally, when reviews are submitted, they are handled by a queue system that is explained in the review submission guidelines. Surprise, most people don't read and get confused why a review doesn't show immediately.
Each content handling rule has a purpose and a reason behind it, it's not arbitrary and it’s applied to all members new or old. We are not obligated to explain these content controls, but for those who ask us professionally and politely, we'd be happy to speak to you. Launching a tirade of insults at our management or members isn't going to net you any brownie points. TAG's staff and a significant part of its membership are professional adults, please keep this in mind.
Lastly, we see a lot of new members coming to TAG who ask for direct, personalized assistance. Sure, we can potentially help you out but neither TAG nor its members provide a concierge service for finding that perfect match. TAG itself is not getting paid to be a matchmaking service and we also want to remain as neutral as possible and refrain from promoting one provider over another. Members may make suggestions, but it's not expected of them and any over-the-top promotion should not be permitted.
The remaining comment on the table has to do with TAG's layout and again, archaic, plain look. I'm sure I've posted this before, but our objective here is to be accessible to everyone who wants to read TAG in any location at any time. Therefore we don't use flashy colors or half-naked women on our pages to attract attention. We sometimes have banner ads, but the overall plain style of TAG is what makes it accessible for people on the train, bus or in public places such as workplaces, etc.
In closing, we are very happy to have a supportive membership base as well as our clients who keep TAG financially afloat. We look forward to improving our business model so that we can continue to improve and expand the services we provide to everyone who reads and relies upon TAG.
From all of us at TAG, Thank you!
==================
Here are some of our numbers that I share with you each year:
During 2019 there were 67.2 Million Pages Served* across 110.3 Million Hits*, Reaching approximately 2.2 Million Viewers*. Our bounce rate for visitors reached 6.98% compared to the 2018 figure of 8.64% a 19.17% decrease, which was a surprise to us. Average time spent on on TAG per visitor, decreased by -40.38% to an average of 4 minutes 52 seconds (2018 was 8 minutes 9 seconds).
Visits By Type:
2016 Returning Visitor: 37.7%
2017 Returning Visitor: 36.7%
2018 Returning Visitor: 50.1%
2019 Returning Visitor: 05.8%*
2016 New Visitor: 62.3%
2017 New Visitor: 63.3%
2018 New Visitor: 49.9%
2019 New Visitor: 94.2%*
*Stats above have been processed with our best effort to weed out bots and other non-human viewers. Stats are statistically analyzed using raw log files from our DWH and data collected in our analytics software package. Due to privacy rule changes in 2019, the visitor (returning vs. new) are skewed as it's difficult to track these stats accurately.
(Management Note: I'm really not sure how much I actually trust these new vs. returning numbers. We will revisit this data and how it's evaluated to hopefully present a more accurate picture.)
Accounts Removed for Various Violations:
(False/Promoted/Paid Reports, Multiple Account Violations, Abusive Behavior, One-Hit-Wonders & General Spam)
2019: 580
2018: 1,040
2017: 1,015
2016: 628
2015: 375
2014: 31
2013: 50
2012: 46
2011: 13
2010: 12
2009: 1
Multiple Account Violations ranked as the #1 issue we faced during the past 2 years. Many people seem to forget their account information or forgot that they made an account here. We hand process this data to help merge accounts or block people from making more than one account either for legitimate or illegitimate reasons. Thankfully, the former is the most frequent...
The general statistics data will be posted here later, archival data prior to 1/25/2020 is currently being packaged for its move to a new home.
Once again, we are here in the new year and new decade of 2020! Thank you very much for your continued patronage and support of our site, Tokyo Adult Guide!
To begin, please be sure to check our previous new year messages such as 2019, here:
https://tokyoadultguide.com/threads/2-6-2019-reflecting-on-2018-and-moving-forward-in-2019.21762/
For TAG, 2019 remained to be a static year with just small issues scattered throughout but nothing terribly concerning. We managed to continue the trend of attracting new members at a rate of about ~820 new members a month with some months peaking at 1,000+.
Overall participation among members remained static as well. We have been trying to find a way to get those shy lurkers to get more engaged with other readers. There is still a huge unnecessary stigma about being involved with mature, adult topics. We understand that members may not want their partner, family or friends to know what they are doing, but there's no shame in being an adult and wanting to expand those horizons.
Our workload at TAG remained high for most of the year. I keep saying that I'll add staff to help, but each time I think I've found someone, they let me down and trust is lost. Karen and Meiji have been stalwarts all these years and have yet to let me down. A good percentage of our members are stalwarts as well, which we appreciate very much! However, the truth is, I need an extra pair of hands to really help things along. The day-to-day operations that you see publicly are only one part of it all... there's a nearly equal workload happening in the back-end area which encompasses the support desk, account management & overall site ops support. I am resolved to find someone who's trustworthy and generally interested in gaining some real community management experience on a social platform.
Other feedback for this year included references to our heavy-handed moderation and what was called archaic censorship. The main problem with these sorts of complaints is that those folks lodging such complaints are either new members or those who don't really do much other than read without a valid account. A significant portion of TAG cannot be seen by a new member or a guest reader. Your participation and contributions nets you a reputation and eventually would be recognized for consideration for an upgraded status. (No, you can't buy it...) Additionally, when reviews are submitted, they are handled by a queue system that is explained in the review submission guidelines. Surprise, most people don't read and get confused why a review doesn't show immediately.
Each content handling rule has a purpose and a reason behind it, it's not arbitrary and it’s applied to all members new or old. We are not obligated to explain these content controls, but for those who ask us professionally and politely, we'd be happy to speak to you. Launching a tirade of insults at our management or members isn't going to net you any brownie points. TAG's staff and a significant part of its membership are professional adults, please keep this in mind.
Lastly, we see a lot of new members coming to TAG who ask for direct, personalized assistance. Sure, we can potentially help you out but neither TAG nor its members provide a concierge service for finding that perfect match. TAG itself is not getting paid to be a matchmaking service and we also want to remain as neutral as possible and refrain from promoting one provider over another. Members may make suggestions, but it's not expected of them and any over-the-top promotion should not be permitted.
The remaining comment on the table has to do with TAG's layout and again, archaic, plain look. I'm sure I've posted this before, but our objective here is to be accessible to everyone who wants to read TAG in any location at any time. Therefore we don't use flashy colors or half-naked women on our pages to attract attention. We sometimes have banner ads, but the overall plain style of TAG is what makes it accessible for people on the train, bus or in public places such as workplaces, etc.
In closing, we are very happy to have a supportive membership base as well as our clients who keep TAG financially afloat. We look forward to improving our business model so that we can continue to improve and expand the services we provide to everyone who reads and relies upon TAG.
From all of us at TAG, Thank you!
==================
Here are some of our numbers that I share with you each year:
During 2019 there were 67.2 Million Pages Served* across 110.3 Million Hits*, Reaching approximately 2.2 Million Viewers*. Our bounce rate for visitors reached 6.98% compared to the 2018 figure of 8.64% a 19.17% decrease, which was a surprise to us. Average time spent on on TAG per visitor, decreased by -40.38% to an average of 4 minutes 52 seconds (2018 was 8 minutes 9 seconds).
Visits By Type:
2016 Returning Visitor: 37.7%
2017 Returning Visitor: 36.7%
2018 Returning Visitor: 50.1%
2019 Returning Visitor: 05.8%*
2016 New Visitor: 62.3%
2017 New Visitor: 63.3%
2018 New Visitor: 49.9%
2019 New Visitor: 94.2%*
*Stats above have been processed with our best effort to weed out bots and other non-human viewers. Stats are statistically analyzed using raw log files from our DWH and data collected in our analytics software package. Due to privacy rule changes in 2019, the visitor (returning vs. new) are skewed as it's difficult to track these stats accurately.
(Management Note: I'm really not sure how much I actually trust these new vs. returning numbers. We will revisit this data and how it's evaluated to hopefully present a more accurate picture.)
Accounts Removed for Various Violations:
(False/Promoted/Paid Reports, Multiple Account Violations, Abusive Behavior, One-Hit-Wonders & General Spam)
2019: 580
2018: 1,040
2017: 1,015
2016: 628
2015: 375
2014: 31
2013: 50
2012: 46
2011: 13
2010: 12
2009: 1
Multiple Account Violations ranked as the #1 issue we faced during the past 2 years. Many people seem to forget their account information or forgot that they made an account here. We hand process this data to help merge accounts or block people from making more than one account either for legitimate or illegitimate reasons. Thankfully, the former is the most frequent...
The general statistics data will be posted here later, archival data prior to 1/25/2020 is currently being packaged for its move to a new home.
