BYBLACK DUCK

Steady Progress Towards the Right Answer

By on August 19, 2007 in blog

I admit to being amazed when I take a peek at Alexa and compare our pageviews with other web sites that focus on open source software. To be sure we are nowhere near SourceForge, the grandaddy of all open source sites, but we are fast approaching or have surpassed the pageviews of FreshMeat, OSDir and Swik.

Why is this? We finally (sigh!) realized that finding more out about the people creating and using open source projects is a fascinating thing. Each time we ship a feature that reveals more about people who create and use open source software our traffic goes up.

Can’t argue with that feedback! But perhaps some of you have a different opinion. Let me know if you do.

–Scott

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  • AndrewFenn (Andrew Fenn)

    Hell no! More social networking! We already have the sites to know about the projects.

    You should do something like sourceforge’s “project of the month” thing but a little more interesting.

    I think for your site it is about striking the balance which is important.

  • http://www.ohloh.net scott (Scott Collison)

    I like Stephen O’Grady’s post about new business models for open source. It certainly rings true to me

    When I think about the future of Ohloh, I think about helping communities create more value for themselves. That can be done by providing our data via APIs so that others can use our data in interesting and innovative ways. It can be done by providing data-driven social networking — not social network that floods your inbox or is a body count of your friends. But, as you say, striking a balance is critical.