Refugees SG (Update 5)

My viral email hunch

As it turns out, the visitors triple. However, I don’t think 1,600 visits a day will continue to be likely: I foresee a drop tomorrow, followed by further drops till the number stabilizes around 300 a day.

One of the assumptions I adopted was for the viral email to keep forwarding, with people forwarding with as much fervour as when it first came out. However, as the email moves to other social groups, further from the original circle of friends, it seems to be forwarded less and less. Possibly the email forwarding was due to a personal sense of duty to the original sender (me); other possible explanation would be for the very long email thread (think having to scroll down all the way to read the message) that deters people from forwarding it.

Points to note: first, asking people to clean up the email thread before forwarding if there are future publicity emails; second, getting a proper petition site before collecting signatures.

Visitors versus Petition Signers

Also, signatures to the petition don’t seem to correlate with how many visitors, they seem to correlate with how many visitors watch the video. So far the number who watch the video are a pretty predictable judge of how many sign; as of today, there have always been only 1-2 more signatures than the people who watch the video. The video is compelling no doubt, and all who watch sign it. Some don’t even need to watch it to sign the petition.

In other news, I ran a 11.83 hand-timed 100m today to place 3rd; a major achievement for someone who hasn’t done any notable physical exertions for the past 2 years.