Everyone owner says their exchange is the best. And many will have numbers to prove it. But sometimes I wonder about all these numbers. Are we playing a numbers game, or are people gaming the numbers?
Credits – Most exchanges 1 credit = 1 hit. But some it could be 2, 5, 10! So when one says they give out more credits.. But those credits are worth way less hits.. is that a legitamite claim?
Members – Some exchanges post their membership numbers. Are these active members, or total? Is it total accounts created in all history, or number of accounts still in the system? Or how about exchanges that let you create more than one account, and then boast membership numbers? Is that for real?
Active Surfing – How about the number of people surfing.. When are they no longer considered surfing.. 30 seconds after their last click? 30 minutes? And again if they allow multiple accounts, if 100 accounts are surfing but everyone has 2 accounts is that 100 or 50 surfing?
Bonuses – Is a surfing bonus based on your surfing ratio, or based on the number of pages viewed? If one exchange is based on your ratio, but another on pages viewed, that’s wildly different if you are a free member! (10% of 2:1 is .05, 10% of 1 is .1)
Pages Viewed – If one exchange has a 10 second timer, but another has a 15 second timer, are the number of pages viewed equal? Or is a 15 second page view worth more than a 10 second one?
This all makes me think of the quotes “I can prove anything by statistics except the truth” (George Canning) “There are two kinds of statistics: the kind you look up and the kind you make up” (Rex Stout). If you do it right, you can make just about any aspect of an exchange sound better than another..
So where does it end? Is there a line somewhere? Or do we just say it’s all marketing and continue on?
One Comment
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