From: Dan Brown Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2024 16:02:36 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Wrote more of the 2023 post X-Git-Url: http://source.bookstackapp.com/website/commitdiff_plain/6ebeab8d57e53aa773d8dd419c9da64138f1429b Wrote more of the 2023 post --- diff --git a/content/blog/2024/bookstack-in-2023.md b/content/blog/2024/bookstack-in-2023.md index a230e60..a4678db 100644 --- a/content/blog/2024/bookstack-in-2023.md +++ b/content/blog/2024/bookstack-in-2023.md @@ -9,7 +9,9 @@ draft = false date = 2024-01-03T12:00:00Z +++ -TODO +As we enter into 2024 I thought we'd once again look back over the past year to +see how the project has evolved, in terms of both the core platform and the +supporting working, including the current funding seen throughout 2023. ### Project Funding @@ -39,6 +41,10 @@ The below list summarizes many of the most significant additions and changes mad - Book, and shelf-book, sorting made accessible with improved UX - Updated underlying framework to Laravel 9 - Updated code handling to CodeMirror 6 +- New Languages: + - Finnish + - Norwegian Nynorsk + - Uzbek - API Additions: - Roles - Image gallery @@ -50,20 +56,96 @@ The below list summarizes many of the most significant additions and changes mad - Added more customization-focused partial views +### Website Usage & Audience Reach -### Videos on PeerTube and YouTube +Looking at the [BookStack website analytics](https://analytics.bookstackapp.com/bookstackapp.com) +we can compare activity between 2022 and 2023 to understand year-relative growth +in website usage and audience reach: + +![Weekly visitor chart comparing visits in 2022 to those in 2023, with detailed metrics along the top. The 2022 line shows a spike at the start of the year, but then generally sits just under that for 2023](/images/2024/01/2023-vs-2022-site-analytics.png) + +Across visits and page-views, we can see a general average growth between 10% and 20%. +This is a bit lower than the 45% growth last year, but is not bad considering I've done almost no +additional outreach or marketing content pushes this year, so a ~15% growth indicates +a nice steady natural rise. +Last year we started the year very strong with [reaching the top of Hacker News](https://www.bookstackapp.com/blog/9000-stars-and-the-effects-of-hacker-news/), +which then boosted activity for a good while, but there hasn't really been any spikes or visitor boosts +from anything similar in 2023. +Maybe I need to put more active effort into marketing in 2024 although it's not clear if there's a reason to do so, +and slow & steady growth has it's own benefits of being more manageable and requiring less resources. +To be honest, as long as we're trending in the right direction, I'm happy. +I'd rather not chase numbers for the sake of it. + +### Videos on YouTube & PeerTube + +Throughout 2023 I've kept up publishing videos, one for each feature release with extra videos +here and there to provide guidance and/or insight for the project. +Here are the [BookStack YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/BookStackApp) general stats for the year: + +![YouTube views line chart, with statistics as follows. Views: 94.4K, up 70% from the previous year, Watch time (hours): 6.2K, up 72% from the previous year, Subscribers: 946, up 22% from the previous year, Estimated revenue: £129.27](/images/2024/01/2023-youtube-analytics.png) + +You may notice the estimated revenue shown there. Earlier this year the channel met the requirements for monetization +so I'm now able to earn a little bit of bonus revenue from these videos. +Money isn't really the target though, as it's very far from covering the effort in making this content. +These videos are really about building this extra resource and community hub, while providing +a means for me to celebrate and emphasise work being done for the project. +Folks dunk on YouTube comments as being a toxic place, but generally the feedback I get is +wonderfully wholesome which feeds my motivation for the project. + +As you can see from the other stats, we've generally had good growth overall, even as +I recently promote the YouTube content less in favour of the [PeerTube alternative I set-up](https://www.bookstackapp.com/blog/bookstack-on-foss-video/). +I've been meaning to play around with shorts, just to provide quick summaries for releases, but my recording flow & format doesn't really make this easy. + +The usage of the [BookStack PeerTube channel](https://foss.video/c/bookstack/videos) has gone well so far. +Views and usage is predictably a lot lower than our established YouTube presence, but I've really liked the fact +we're not forcing folks to view ads, or submit to Google's privacy requirements, when sending visitors to video +content from the BookStack site. Plus it's nice to be a part of the open social fediverse. + +On the subject of video and YouTube, in August [I spotted BookStack](https://fosstodon.org/@danb/110956729212142440) +used within a Linus Tech Tips video, which was pretty awesome to see. +From what I could tell, it's likely an instance set up by Floatplane which LMG labs were also +using at that time. + +### AI Impact on BookStack + +AI has been a massive subject for this year as LLMs & image generation has exploded in use. +Personally, I've found LLMs to be quite useful in some select cases, although I'm still conflicted on the +the morality of the training process and their overall impact on the world. +They seem to be becoming a bigger part of society though, so it's probably important to keep tabs on their use +along with their co-existence and potential benefits for projects like BookStack. + +In regard to LLM usage in BookStack, earlier this year I came across [Danswer](https://docs.danswer.dev/introduction) +which I built an integration for which allowed Chat-GPT querying of your BookStack content. +I talked about this more, along with a demo of this integration, [in my video here from about 4:28](https://foss.video/w/mB67n8JBBHb9mSMYUM5DED?start=4m28s). +This is probably the most valuable usage of LLMs with a system like BookStack. +I've also heard some other good ideas like using LLMs to generate out templates, or base page content. +Another neat idea is using image generation to create book and shelf covers. +Most of these desired should be possible via existing integration methods for the most part although +as LLM/AI options, and the desired usages of them, evolve we may start to see areas where we can +specifically provide interfaces to help these kinds of tools. + +Outside of the core platform, we'd also seen AI's impact in our issue management, as well as in +external news content for BookStack, both of which reflects the downsides of AI: + +On issue management, I've had a couple submitted that were clearly filled out using an LLM. +I don't mind a LLM used to help where it adds value, to assist user written content. +Unfortunately though, in these cases, it has simply been used in feature requests to back up the request +with many paragraphs of generic text that has barely a grasp of what BookStack is. +These cases are a little frustrating as it just serves to waste my time, in attempting to extract any underlying intent +and value. I'm having to somewhat reverse the content to their original prompt. +The questions on our feature request form are to understand the value to users, not those imagined by a text generator. + +In regard to news content, BookStack [was featured on Laravel news](https://web.archive.org/web/20231109033107/https%3A%2F%2Fp.rizon.top%3A443%2Fhttps%2Flaravel-news.com%2Fbookstack-documentation-wiki-software) which was awesome as a long-term reader of the site myself. +Unfortunately when reading it was quickly clear the article was LLM generated since many of the features detailed +reflected a limited grasp on understanding BookStack while some of them were just wrong & misleading. +Due to these issues, I didn't feel I could celebrate or share the article as that would just propagate this incorrect content. +Instead I emailed the site to notify them of the inaccuracies, with advised changes, although I had to follow that up [with a Tweet](https://twitter.com/bookstack_app/status/1722457925900280074) a few days later to prompt some action. It was then promptly updated using the text from our website. -TODO ### Hacks Site? http://localhost:1313/blog/hacks-on-the-site/ -### Website Usage & Audience Reach - -TODO - - ### Going into 2024 TODO diff --git a/static/images/2024/01/bookstack_2023_income.png b/static/images/2024/01/bookstack_2023_income.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cf2895 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/images/2024/01/bookstack_2023_income.png @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1 +oid sha256:d1486bca041316c6630676b252678c5079d0c5eecaf2e43e74998878b99ea855 +size 25108