Reflecting on Research Blog Readership

I thought it would be interesting to see how many people use RSS subscriptions for blogs in my research area. This means that my research blog (Looting Matters) has a solid core of readers in addition to those who visit it via the web or have the posts emailed to them. (This blog, Swansea Learning Lab, has a grand total of 7 subscribers.)

I wonder if this gives a better idea of readership than straight “hits”. The blog receives on average well over 10,000 visits a month (some just going to the home page). But the RSS subscription figures via Google Reader would suggest that some 7000 posts were delivered to electronic desktops (including the iPad).