Devesigned by ‘automattic‘, the same people who wrote the WordPress code (“code is poetry”), released their WordPress application for iPhone today. I downloaded it and found myself writing this post within a minute. Really, that’s how well it works! The app has been redesigned and in nothing it resembles the WordPress admin screen.

The interface allows thevuser to sign up for several blogs. I only had to fill in the URL, my user name, and password. When logged in to one of my blogs, thirty of my recent posts are shown and can be easily read and edited. Using a single button, a new post is created, including a title field, categories, and tags. All the categories created on my blog were shown on my iPhone, but it is also possible to add more categories on the run. Drafts are stored locally, so that you can write even when not connected to the internet.

Not all that is possible from the WordPress admin screen, can be done using the iPhone app. For starters, you can’t do anything but write a blog post, but I feel that in that limitation the strength of this app lies. Some other limitations are due to the fact that we’re writing from an iPhone: for instance I don’t see myself writing posts with a thousands of words length due to the relatively small keyboard.

Some other things might perhaps be added to future versions of this app, however. For instance, it is at present not possible to add a link to another page or blog on the web. Also, you can’t manually change the permalink of the post, nor can abstracts be added to the posts.

All in all I find this app strongly suited for writing a quick post on your Worspress blog. No long and detailed academic posts can be expected to be written using this app, but I do believe that it is very well able to result in nice concise contributions. Especially in a dynamic environment where you don’t want to be lugging around too much equipment, for instance on a conference, I see how this WordPress app can be put to great use.

Soon I will be attending the useR! 2008 conference in Dortmund. I already planned to do some conference live-blogging, so now I have found myself the tool to do so.

I must admit that I repeatedly feel flattered by the number of page-views on my blog as shown by the WordPress statistics plugin. However, despite the nice graphical representation, they are a little too flattering for the humble number of page-views my blog attracts. A traditional line-graph consists of two axes. Traditionally, these are referred to as the x-axis, and the y-axis. To say it bluntly: the wordpress statistics plug-in messes up on account of both axes.
 

Problems with the Y-axis

Regarding the y-axis, representing the number of page-views on a specific day, the problem lies with the numeric limits of the axis. In other words: in every representation the minimum and maximum value on the y-axis differs, which is especially problematic regarding the minimum value of the axis. When I try to discern a trend in the humble number of page-views on my blog, I’m often mislead due to this problem.

Let’s take a look. Today, I saw the graph represented below on my WordPress Dashboard. This graph clearly shows an increase in the number of page-views since June 5th. At least, so it appears. When we take a closer look at the y-axis, we see that it starts at 10, instead of 0. Is that a big deal? Yes it is. This means that the graph only shows 80% of the total reach of the graph.

About ten minutes later a new day started which resulted in a totally different graph, as shown below. Still, we see an increase in the absolute number of page-views, but now the slope of the line seems to be less steep. Instead of a clear increase, we now see more clearly a relatively stable number of page-views of about 30, with an initial dip and a peak at the end of the selected time-period. Reason for this is the completely different values used to represent the y-axis. This results in a graph which is a lot less optimistic for my blog.

Problems with the X–axis

Regarding the x-axis, representing the dates on which the page-views were registered, the problem lies with the absence of dates on which no page-views were registered at all. This seems to be an even more serious problem. Again, I’ve added the graph created by WordPress statistics on one of my blog-posts. It shows a recognizable pattern: the most page-views on the day it was published and after that a steady decline. However, a superficial review of this graph would lead to the conclusion that readers have found this blog-post once or twice a day after that.

 

But, is that a valid conclusion? No it is not. A more detailed view of the graph shows that there have been many days that no-one at all viewed this post. Below, I’ve printed a bar-chart that also shows the days with 0 page-views. Again, it shows an image a lot less optimistic regarding my blog.

 

How bad is it and can it be solved?

Is this all that bad? Well, it gives the users of WordPress a positive feeling about themselves. But, for those who want a realistic overview of the success of their blog, the image given by these stats is not all that helpful. The more page-views a blog has, the worse this problem becomes: the plugin adjust the y-axis to show the absolute variation in number of page-views as large as possible, thereby overestimating the relative differences. The problem with the x-axis is highly problematic for the posts that are rarely visited.

Should this be adjusted in a next version of the plugin? Well, that’s a point for discussion. I can image a few people disappointed when their optimistic images turn more realistic. Nevertheless, I would suggest that the folks at WordPress at least would add the possibility for users to manually define the limits of the axes. Or, at the least, allow users to select the visualization of days that no page-views were registered on the x-axis and to have the y-axis start at zero.