Sidepodcast

At the end of last year we listed some statistics relating to this site, and said we’d take another look in a year’s time. We still plan to do that, but top chap SteveInTheUK has done such a fine job of collating information relating to one of those stats, we just had to give him a plug.

The number in question is the comment count, and at the end of 2007 after pretty much exactly a year of podcasting, that number stood at 1,548 comments. Since then Steve has been keeping track of how the figures have moved as the year has progressed. The results have been entered into a Google spreadsheet, the output of which looks something like this:

If you’re statistically inclined, it’s worth spending some time digging into the data, but the two colours of most interest in the picture above are the Total Comments (in blue) and the Total Comments from Live Sessions (in grey). In essence they show just what an impact live commenting has had on the overall count as well as highlighting just how much discussion the last two races have generated.

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It’s all been building up to this. Formula 1 teams have been literally working day and night since the chequered flag dropped in Brazil to ready their 2008 challengers for race day in Melbourne.

We’ve followed winter testing, we’ve read the form guide, we’ve watched free practice and qualifying, and now we want to see a race. The banning of traction control / engine braking has already shown us that the cars will at least look dramatic, let’s see if that translates to some on track action. The dash to the first corner will be unmissable at the very least.

The temperature in Melbourne is currently 34°, it’s going to be a warm one. Race starts at 15:30 local time.

As ever, we’ll be following online live timing, while watching ITV’s television coverage.

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So the first attempt at commenting / chatting went pretty well, smashing all previous discussion records in the process.

We’re opening up a new thread for the second session, partly to give the server a break and partly because it seems like a sensible approach. After a very brief investigation, there appears to be a whole bunch of improvements we can make to ensure live commenting is faster and smoother in the future, but for now we’ll go with what we have.

Live timing is running and the cars are on the track. As ever this is all about the opinion, so we’ll throw our observations into the ring as we go.

Yell if you’re still awake!