532 users online

decision to display how many visitors you have on your site at any time

[indigojo]

I have seem some information/community specific sites displaying their current users stats, and thought myself that it creates a sense of community seeing that you are not the only person surfing a site.

What do you guys think of this from a commercial point of view, ie your advertisers and potential advertisers see that there are always a good volume of people on the site hopefully encouraging them to spend. Anyone done anything similar and realised any benefits? or is this passe!

On a side note I'd be interested in seeing that info for this site, especially come pre-google update time.

[txbakers]

I think it's interesting on a forum or chat site, but rather silly on a commercial site.

After all, how many stores do you visit that have a banner up front that says, "26 shoppers inside"?

The cool thing about web shopping is one on one and privacy while I'm doing it.

[Bradley]

Perhaps you should display results if you reach a certain number. If only 20 people are on the site, that might not *seem* impressive, but if 500 are on the site at one, that might *seem* impressive. Meeting that minimum threshhold would be subjective and depend on the industry that you are involved with.

[indigojo]

ok good to get feed back, and kind of what i thought. cheers