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Some thoughts on the FCPX Forum
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[Craig Seeman] “Analytics I’d look at aren’t the number of posts. “
You’re right, I was being too glib. Apologies.
Like every site, we have metrics derived from both site logs and independent tracking from several sources. As one example, what Google knows about visitors to the COW…which is a lot…we know. But other sources include things as direct as server logs.
So, in sweeping terms, here’s what we know, with complete certainty.
Traffic is way up. Number of unique visitors is way up. FCPX Techniques traffic, up. Final Cut Pro Old School, up.
Adobe Premiere, up. Avid, up. 🙂
DaVinci Resolve, Sony Vegas, up and up. DSLR Video, up.
Oh yeah, views here, up.
I can go on, but every part of the site is consistently up. A number of new areas, including the Career Center and the Services Directory are WAY up.
Some people have been turned off by this particular forum. That’s why we’ve labeled this one as the Debate forum, and set up another TWO MONTHS ago for people who want to get to work, and it’s working.
It’s worth noting that people are still learning about this FCPX stuff. You guys are literally the avant garde, which means that there are bunches of folks still behind. This hasn’t even begun to peak.
Watch for another spike this time next month after IBC, and whenever a new update rolls out that helps people further triangulate their course relative to Apple’s.
To answer another question, repeat visits, also up.
OThe number of people who hit one page via a search engine and leave after one page (called bounce rate) has dropped by more than half. More people are coming, and they’re staying longer. As a result, the percentage of visits by “regular” visitors has almost doubled. (Simple math, right?)
As far as tracking any individual visitor, well, we can, but sifting through millions of records would take some time. But it really is millions of records. If you were an advertiser, I’d get a lot more specific. 🙂
Overall, we’re on track this year to have well over 20 million unique visitors. In general, it’s working.
What’s not working is still the overall hostility levels, and we’re working to bring THAT part of the forum back in line with what people should expect from the COW. But people as a group leaving? The opposite is happening. Regulars leaving? No, we’re creating more regulars.
I regret any individuals leaving, and hope that they’ll simply steer clear of this one forum, and move on to the over 200 forums that are moving as smoothly as they always have, including the one for FCPX Techniques.
Sorry to drone on about this. It’s more than you were probably asking, but I didn’t want to leave any questions. This is veering pretty far off topic, but if anyone has any other questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.
None of this changes what I said in another post: the hostility of some posters is simply unacceptable to us. We appreciate your patience while we try to herd the cows back onto the trail, because we do take this seriously.
Happy trails,
Tim -
[Tim Wilson] “Sorry to drone on about this. It’s more than you were probably asking,”
It is what I was asking for. As someone who consults for people who do live streaming, while slightly different than static webpages, these analytics are the kinds of things I talk about to explain what goals were achieved, where things might grow. I’d love to see a deeper discussion of analytics in the web streaming forum although this could be in the business forum as well. I’m not quite sure where the discussion would fit but no one seems to bring this up much in either forum and I think it’s integral as you well understand.
[Tim Wilson] “Some people have been turned off by this particular forum. That’s why we’ve labeled this one as the Debate forum, and set up another TWO MONTHS ago for people who want to get to work, and it’s working.”
I really think, as time passes, this forum might get beyond just FCPX and become a discussion of “industry trends.” I would love to see the divergent analysis whether Apple or HP, etc and how that might impact our purchasing decisions with software and hardware tools. It could help anyone ranging from a single system purchase to a facility manager trying to asses the market.
The thing is discussion should be civil and substantial. It’s certainly hard to “police” that but it’s interesting how the discourse is compared to any of the technical or even the business forum.
[Tim Wilson] “You guys are literally the avant garde, which means that there are bunches of folks still behind. This hasn’t even begun to peak.
Watch for another spike this time next month after IBC, and whenever a new update rolls out that helps people further triangulate their course relative to Apple’s.”
That’s often why, when many of the tech companies that sell product (hardware of software) do focus studies, they ask if you define yourself as an early adaptor as well as whether other’s come to you for recommendations. It might well mean that Apple’s marketing dept. failed in its early adopter strategy.
If Apple really gets their API and related bug fixes out the door, IBC might be a good time for the plug in developers.
[Tim Wilson] “What’s not working is still the overall hostility levels, and we’re working to bring THAT part of the forum back in line with what people should expect from the COW. But people as a group leaving? “
Again only anecdotal but I’ve seen a few persons on other forums state that they are in other forms because of a level of discourse they had experienced elsewhere that they where not pleased with. I’ve never seen that previous to this forum. Hence the “alarm bell” I experienced in my head.
[Tim Wilson] “I regret any individuals leaving, and hope that they’ll simply steer clear of this one forum,”
I think some people actually do want to discuss this sans animus. They may very well visit other COW forums but go elsewhere to get their non tech questions answered. Those would be newbies purchasing their first NLE or professionals wondering if FCPX is worth learning for the future. Those wouldn’t be Techniques questions. That’s why I think a civil “industry trends” type forum would be good… if only this forum could evolve into that.
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Lots of assumptions and speculation. I guess we will have a firmer idea of where this is going come the equinox. For my part I assume that if Apple was truly interested in targeting the pro market they would’ve come out with some fixes for the many, many, bugs by now.
bigpine
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[TImothy Auld] “For my part I assume that if Apple was truly interested in targeting the pro market they would’ve come out with some fixes for the many, many, bugs by now.”
And on the other side maybe they feel they have to be a bit more ambitious on the first update given the response to the initial release. Yup the equinox will tell since they said “summer.”
While it’s only in the rumor mill, it’s been reported that Steve Jobs was not happy about how things went and has gotten personally involved. Assuming that’s true, we still don’t know what they byproduct of that is.
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Fascinating stuff!
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I don’t really buy that one. I forget which release it was but one of the FCP versions was so buggy Apple
did a dot update within days of its release. You don’t build or maintain a customer base by leaving people hanging.That said I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple came with a usable version of X for those of us who need the myriad features it is missing. The question for me is if they can do it in time to retain the market share they have now. I have never been a cheerleader for any particular platform and my sole loyalty to Mac was based on FCP. I personally do not trust the company any longer. Their silence on this subject speaks volumes. There may come a time when FCP whatever comes along and its great and maybe at that point I’ll be forced to give it another look. But after what was done with Shake and FCS3 I’ll be quite wary about it.
bigpine
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[TImothy Auld] “I don’t really buy that one. I forget which release it was but one of the FCP versions was so buggy Apple
did a dot update within days of its release. You don’t build or maintain a customer base by leaving people hanging.”I remember the FCP AutoSave disaster being around for some weeks. FCP would stop autosaving and eventual crash loosing all information at the point the autosave stopped which could be hours of work. It might have been early FCP 4 or FCP 5. It was not days for that one.
You can’t force programers to release anything until they’re finished and it’s tested. There’s no way to speed that beyond forcing programers to work without sleep and truncating the QA process. I do work with coders and “fatal” issues warrant “overnight” updates but everything else can and should be properly vetted first. They can not nor should they release anything until it’s gone through QA. While you might have “instant” Oatmeal, there’s no “instant” bug fix. It takes as long as it takes and Apple has said (yes SAID) “Summer” which means by Fall equinox. If you don’t see an update by late September then you can claim Apple didn’t deliver on a promised update.
https://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/
Does Final Cut Pro X allow you to assign audio tracks for export?
Not yet. An update this summer will allow you to use metadata tags to categorize your audio clips by type and export them directly from Final Cut Pro X.That’s their promise. We’ll have to wait and see if they deliver.
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They also “said” they would be releasing “hooks” to third party developers within a few weeks. That was two months ago. They “say” a lot of things.
bigpine
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[TImothy Auld] “They also “said” they would be releasing “hooks” to third party developers within a few weeks. That was two months ago.”
I hear that is happening although they’re behind on that. That’s why developers hate giving dates. My guess is that FCPX has not been an “easy” development. My own opinion is that developers should be informed of such delays. I noted the Stu Maschwitz (of RedGiant) blog but we don’t know the specifics of “talking” with Apple.
We’ll see developers abandon ship and I suspect they’ll do so publicly if they feel Apple has abandoned some key things developers need.
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[Rafael Amador] “I prefer to see it the other way: I’ve been encouraging people to what I honestly think are the best practices and solution. “
Interesting. So do you also go to all the other forums for software and equipment you don’t use and don’t like, and encourage people out of their misguidedness there?
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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
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