Blog Info & Stats
At a Glance
Name of blog: The Cranky Product Manager (www.crankypm.com)
Email: crankypm at crankypm.com
Author’s Name: The Cranky Product Manager (blog author is anonymous, but is willing to disclose identity under certain circumstances – please email for more information).
Areas written about: software product development, product management, product marketing, industry trends within the software and online services industry, geek humor.
Biography details: The author has been a software product management professional for over a decade. She also did a few years as a hoity-toity management consultant and software engineer.
Sector: Software Manufacturers, Online Services, Information Technology
How often the blog is updated: Varies – from once a month to once a week
Circulation: (Unique visitors per month, and/or Page Hits)
We estimate that about 30% of the Cranky Product Manager’s readers are driven to the site via Twitter, 35% from the blog’s RSS feed, about 5% via Facebook, and the rest via Google searches.
The Cranky Product Manager (@crankypm) has about 2800 Twitter followers as of October 2010 (. She sends out a Twitter notification whenever she publishes new blog posts. On average, these notifications of new blog posts are re-tweeted by between 20 to 60 followers. We believe that Twitter is the main way that NEW readers learn of the Cranky Product Manager blog. The Cranky Product Manager has a Twitter Klout ranking of 43 – a measure that reflects follower engagement and thought leadership, beyond the easily gamed number-of-followers metric. This places The Cranky Product Manager among the top 30% of Twitter influencers.
The Cranky Product Manager also replicates her posts on Facebook, where she has over 600 fans. We estimate that about 100 people read each post via Facebook.
Many readers also subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed or receive posts via email. According to Feedburner, there are about 3500 RSS subscribers as of October 2010.
All told, we estimate regular readers of the Cranky Product Manager to be > 6000 people.
In the month of October 2010, there were over 21,000 page loads, 15,500+ visitors, 12,500+ first time visitors and 2,700+ returning visitors. Note that this does not generally include people that receive posts via their RSS feeds or email.
Search Engine Keywords
The Cranky Product Manager blog is a top Google match for many search keywords related to product management and software development. In fact, for every month from Jan 2009 through October 2010, the blog was the #1 result for the searches ”product manager blog” and “product management blog.”
The blog is also an above-the-fold, page-one match for many topics related to product management and software development without the word “blog” in the search, such as “product manager”, “software product management,” and “software product manager.”
About the Blog
The Cranky Product Manager blog aims to educate and improve the state of software product development by educating its audiences about best and worst practices, IN A HUMOROUS AND MEMORABLE way so that audiences retain the information.
The Cranky Product Manager is unique among similar blogs because of its entertaining and truth-telling approach. The humor and satirical tone have gained the Cranky Product Manager a uniquely loyal audience, with 3500+ RSS feed subscribers, 600+Facebook fans, 2700+ Twitter followers, and 2500+ regular website visitors.
Content:
The Cranky Product Manager talks primarily about software product management, but also about software product development in general. Content breaks into the following categories:
- Humorous stories about the truth of software development. (Examples: How QA is really done versus how it should be done, how products are REALLY named versus the ideal method.)
- Humorous yet useful “How to” articles for product managers, product marketers and product development professionals
- Humorous yet useful pieces on market/business/technology trends impacting software product development
- Humorous but useful answers to specific questions from readers about product development, product marketing, and product management questions
- Reviews of books and products related to commercial software development
This is not yet-another-software-geek blog in that it is from the perspective of the PRODUCT MANAGER, not the engineer. The product manager is the semi-technical person who is responsible for making sure this product makes money by figuring out what to build, how to promote it, how to build it, etc… The product manager does NOT write code, does not directly manage developers, does not usually do “proJECT management,” often has an MBA, and is often the product’s “entrepreneur within the company”.
Readership:
This blog is aimed at product management, product marketing, and product development professionals at software companies and information technology companies. Over 73% of readers work in the software manufacturing or online service provider industries. Over 60% work in product management or product marketing. There is also a sizeable minority readership from corporate IT professionals, software engineers, and technology analysts (Gartner, Forrester, etc).
For more detailed demographics and statistics, garnered from a readership survey answered by 193 unique readers, see http://www.crankypm.com/crankypm/2008/09/about-you-guys.html
How Can the Cranky Product Manager Help You?
The Cranky Product Manager is able to provide quotes relating to the process of and state of software process development, comment on market trends affecting product development, etc… The best fit is when the quotes can be in the Cranky Product Manager’s typical snarky style.
The Cranky Product Manager is also able to review products, books, services, and events on her blog, provided they pertain to technology product development.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Cranky,
As you stated on your site about your high ranking on “the Google,” which I just came across yesterday for the first time, I thought I’d write because I very much like your writing style. Just yesterday I was offered a PM position with a software company after being laid off from my previous job a few months back. Of course I have zero experience with product management so I find myself today rigorously researching how best to approach my new endeavor. Aside from my own research I know that extending a hand to others is a wise approach. I have helped many friends and colleagues this way and am a firm believer in what goes around comes around. So here I am writing to you for the chance that you may have some advice on how to best prepare myself for the weeks to come. Thanks for extending us all a hand in bettering ourselves. Enjoy your weekend.
Matthew
It seems surprisingly difficult to find out, on this site, how to subscribe. I looked through various pages until finding the twitter handle on this page, buried within a big paragraph. RSS feed I haven’t yet seen a link to, and no it doesn’t auto-surface in my browser.
On this page, you say: “Many readers also subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed or receive posts via email. According to Feedburner, there are about 3500 RSS subscribers as of October 2010.” Are you trying to dissuade RSS following, or why not even put a link when you mention the feed?