As you signed on to the site today, you were asked to fill in your favorite genre, second favorite genre, and third favorite genre.  For a certain age group, you were no doubt cursing at the surprise.  Sorry about that.  Everyone else is probably wondering why. 

Every Saturday morning, I collect our stats on active members, Premium Subscribers, etc.  As we get ready to move to the new forum software, I am working to set up our data collection and usage to better serve our members.  In marketing terms, we are segmenting.  

Yesterday, I ran 2 years of visitor data (no personal information, just numbers) through AI to analyze whether any trends existed.  There was a lot of interesting stuff in there.  Like the Secret Author contest event last summer, drove significant traffic and engagement.  We also saw significant movement in the Fall anthology.

It also recommended several steps we can take to better understand our traffic. I updated the code to better understand our traffic and added more details from you, as members. In this case, your stated genre preferences.

Quote

Top 10 genres among MEMBERS (Weighted: Fav=3, 2nd=2, 3rd=1; excluding 'None'):
 1) Action/Adventure — 457
 2) Romance — 134
 3) General Fiction — 93
 4) Fantasy — 61
 5) Comedy — 56
 6) Science Fiction — 41
 7) Mystery — 32
8 ) Thriller/Suspense — 25
 9) Paranormal — 22
10) Literary Fiction — 19

I will now get this as part of the weekly report that shows me people's weighted genre preference.  What are we doing with it?  Nothing right now. We are just starting to collect the data.  What will we do with it? We'll use it as part of what they call content discovery.  For example, if you like Westerns, you might get a sidebar that has the newest Westerns on it. While someone else might get Historicals.  The purpose would be to make it easier to find things you like.  

We can also use it promote certain things.  Like, hey, there are a bunch of people that love Sci-Fi, writers, here's an untapped audience.

I will emphasize that no personal information is involved.  We're just trying to understand what people like and provide more of it more easily.