Twitter Data Analysis: An Investor’s Perspective

This post is merely pointing you to the remarkable analysis of Twitter usage carried by Robert J Moore, CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics.

Just go read it ...

Usage patterns

Well I have just spent the entire day crunching issue stats and its been quite interesting.... odd, but interesting.

Our average daily issues over all items has been rising consistently, 20% over the last 2 years.

The average daily issue count of all rental items (fiction, magazines, DVDs) has remained essentially static, despite issues rising so significantly. Income from rental items has flatlined, virtually unchanged despite halving the rental charge of pay DVDs 18 months ago. We have long suspected there is $x of disposable income to spend at the library, and if people borrow more rental DVDs they spend less on rental fiction etc. This became very obvious once we got the stats on a graph.

Total DVDs make up around 11% of our total issues, up from 4% just 2 years ago; the daily average count of free DVDs has risen by 288% !

Actually looking at our issues in relation to what % of the budget we spent is interesting too:

• AV: 6% of our budget generating 15% of our issues.
• LP: 14% of the budget for 15% of our issues.
• Junior: 18% for 15% of our issues.
• ANF: 23% for 15% of our issues.
• Fiction: 19% of the budget generating 30% of the issues.

The DVD collection, which gets about 4% of the total budget, generates 11% of the issues which is a pretty good return on investment.

Generating Revenue through Rental Collections
The starting point for all this was that Council would like us to raise more money. Now that our issues are rising so steadily, not to mention our visitor numbers (both real and virtual), surely we should be able to generate a bigger chunk of our operating expenses ... well, no, sorry.

Those who choose or can afford to rent items rent them, and those who can't don't. And those who are coming to the library because of economic hardship are not coming to spend money. If the motivation to save money gets them to the library, it is also going to get them to bypass rental items for free ones - of which we have plenty.

Its official: Horowhenua librarians are heroes!

Library use is going through the roof!

I have just been looking at the monthly stats for Horowhenua Library Trust and if you thought we have been busy - you are right! Just look at these stand-out figures (anything under a 30% increase not included):

Visitor increases:

• Levin up 15 % from same month last year
• Foxton up 46% (no - not a typo)
  
  

Loan increases:

• Adult nonfiction: Levin up 33%, Foxton up 22%
• Adult fiction: Shannon up 51%
• Adult audio visual: Levin up 37% & Foxton up 42%
• Junior nonfiction: Levin up 39%, Foxton up 131%, Shannon up 92%
• Junior fiction: Levin up 37%, Foxton up 77% & Shannon up 37%
• Junior audio visual: Foxton up 78% & Shannon up 53%

This resulted in an across District increase of 22% over the same month last year!

Remember also that we have almost a year of month on month increases. You go Girls!

Standard and Poor's stock index's annual returns

This is a graphic of the Standard and Poor's stock index's annual returns, placing every year since 1825 in a column of returns from -50% to +60%. As you can see, it is a rough bell curve, with 45 of those 185 years falling in the +0-10% column. There are only 5 years each in the 40-50% and 50-60% return columns, and, through 2007, there were only one year each in the -31-40% and -41-50% columns. You can see where 2008 to date falls.

I love the way statistics can mean so much more when presented in different ways. This kinda supports the arguments that the fall is the market correcting itself ...

Source

(UPDATED: From DailyKos, via Greg Mankiw.)