Helium should consider making their statistics real time, if they can do so both accurately and without affecting site performance.

Real time statistics offer several advantages. Especially for new writers, it can be very encouraging to see how articles are performing right away, rather than waiting days. In addition, some writers, rather than writing and publishing one article each day, may publish in spurts. For these writers, the feedback about readership and rating performance can be important to receive in real time, before more work is published.

Also, Helium would doubtless avoid numerous forum posts, support e-mails and other inquiries (despite clear statements that statistics are not real time) either expressing concern about the lack of new earnings, or asking questions about when the statistics will be updated.

On the other hand, it is more important that statistics are accurate than that they are real time. For instance, another writing website has recently had a lot of controversy because their daily pageview updates were inaccurate, and were adjusted before payout time (sometimes up, and quite frequently down). This does more damage to the site than less frequent updates were doing. Similarly, if Helium cannot develop the software to accurately report statistics real time, they should not do so.

Second is site performance. Helium in its current form is very user friendly. This is a huge advantage to the site. It is easy to navigate, and remarkably quick to load, despite the massive amount of data on the site. Adding a feature which is constantly translating page views and ratings into earnings and stars would use huge resources. If the site cannot handle this resource use and continue to load as quickly, and be as generally user friendly, Helium should not add real time statistic updates.

As much as people may push for real time updates, the reality is that they are obviously willing to use Helium as is. On the other hand, if those statistics become inaccurate when they are updated real time, or if the site becomes user unfriendly, people may leave. Nobody will ever be 100% happy, but at least given the current situation, they are close enough that they are still here. Change is both risky and scary.

In addition to the risks of going to real time statistics, there is a question of whether this should be a major priority. For instance, would readers rather have the same statistics available, but in real time, or have enhanced statistics available at the current update rates? For many writers, it would probably be preferable to see the exact rates at which they are being paid, as well as the number of page views, the bounce rates, and other useful data.

In short, real time updates is definitely worth consideration for Helium, but should not be prioritized over site performance, statistic accuracy, or other, more useful updates.

Learn more about this author, Zach F.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Should Helium statistics be made real-time??
We want to hear your view. Write now!