October felt like tuning a messy orchestra and landing on a surprisingly catchy groove. Sales were flat (the triangle player took a coffee break), but attention and discovery spiked across platforms — especially where quick visuals and short reads shine.
Highlights at a glance
- Facebook: Views up 50%, Reach up 242%, Interactions up 450%, Clicks flat (0%), Visits up 167%, Total Followers flat (0%), New Followers up 100%. Top posts: Paris, Tilting at Midnight and Ribbons of Blue and Green: A Vision You Can Hear.
- Medium: Earnings +9%, Views +20%, Reads +10%, Followers −5%, Subscribers +27%. Most viewed & read: Swagger vs ReDoc: The Ultimate Showdown of API Documentation Titans. Second most viewed & read (and highest earning): 10 Politically Incorrect Jokes That Will Make You Laugh.
- LumAIere.com (including the blog): Page Views +106%, Blog Views +109%, Active Users +143%. Most viewed blog: The Chagall Windows in Fraumünster Church, Zurich — In Depth. Runner-up: Deep Dive into libpostal — Address Parsing & Formatting Magic. Most viewed overall: LumAIere.com; second: blog.lumaiere.com.
- X: Impressions +57%, Likes +48%, Engagements +39%, Total Follows +19%, New Follows 0%. Most viewed: Generative AI Community: Video Prompt. Second: Blocks, Beats, and Perfect Right Angles. Most-viewed reply off-profile: @grok wtf? Reply to @forallcurious.
- TikTok: “1K+ views” videos +100%, Views +67%, Profile Views +8%, Likes −10%, Comments +83%, Shares −33%, Total Followers +36%, New Follows +150%. Most viewed: An urban-night canvas crackles: Basquiat. Second most viewed: Crowns, chaos, and a canvas: Basquiat. Most liked: Python or JavaScript?. Second most liked: Ember Doors: A Haunted Colorfield.
What do the metrics say?
- Discovery is booming. Facebook reach (+242%) and site Active Users (+143%) suggest the content is getting in front of far more people.
- Short, visual, and useful wins. Reels and concise, practical posts led the charge. On Medium, a hands-on, comparison-style article topped both views and reads.
- Engagement quality is mixed. Interactions skyrocketed on Facebook (+450%), while Clicks stayed flat. Conclusion: viewers enjoyed in-app consumption; the next move is adding subtle hooks to bring them onsite.
- Followers are volatile but trending up. Facebook totals were flat, but new followers doubled. TikTok’s follower growth (+36%, new +150%) shows the algorithm liked October’s mix.
Most and least popular — what actually resonated?
- Top Blog Articles:
- Least Popular: Two quiet corners this month: The Late-Shift Superpower: Getting It Done After Everyone Logs Off and Episode 27: Mark Rothko — Rooms of Color, Rooms of Feeling. The first may have been too relatable — burnout doesn’t trend well on Mondays — and the second too meditative for a scroll-happy crowd. Both deserve another look: one explores focus after hours, the other the color of quiet itself.
Patterns I’m seeing
- Visual storytelling + pragmatic how-to = traction. Stained glass deep dives and “how this tool really works” content earned durable site traffic.
- Platform-native formats perform best. Reels and short-form posts thrived; long-form still wins when it’s actionable and tightly scoped (see: Swagger vs ReDoc).
- Basquiat energy travels. The two most-viewed TikToks were art-forward, high-contrast, and fast-paced.
What worked
- Reels cadence and variety (art + tech) drove the biggest reach and interaction gains.
- Comparison content (e.g., Swagger vs ReDoc) converted attention into reads and subs.
What didn’t
- Flat outbound clicks on Facebook mean the posts kept people “on-platform.” Next step: test end-card CTAs and mid-caption teasers to nudge curious readers back to blog.lumaiere.com without killing in-app completion.
- TikTok likes down 10% despite more comments. The content sparked conversation, but some clips may have traded polish for pace. November will keep the tempo, with cleaner edits and stronger hooks.
October in the books
If you scanned October’s post list, you saw a mix of art history (Cézanne, Van Gogh), playful AI showdowns, and the kickoff of a Web3 languages mini-series. It was a wide canvas — and the numbers say the breadth helped new people find the work.
What’s cooking in November
- The Artist Series continues (bring snacks).
- Web3 Programming Languages mini-series keeps going.
- Messaging & IoT samplers:
Qpid: AMQP across platforms.
CoAP: tiny, REST-ish, and UDP-friendly.
OASIS: the standards folks who make the specs behave.
Mosquitto (overview via HiveMQ): lightweight MQTT broker goodness.
HiveMQ: MQTT with serious clustering shoes.
ActiveMQ: a veteran message broker with protocol range.
- Maybe forge for NFTs? If that’s your jam, say the word.
A few November facts for fun
- The Leonids meteor shower usually peaks mid-November — perfect for night-owl editors.
- November once marked the start of the Ancient Roman “winter” season; your laptop fans agree.
- It’s the 11th month, but it used to be the ninth. Calendars are versioned software.
Your turn
What should land first — more Artists, or more “why this protocol matters” breakdowns? Drop requests, hot takes, and favorite reels in the comments. Follow for the November experiments and the occasional art-nerd victory lap. And if long-form is your happy place, you’ll find me at medium.com/@DaveLumAI.
Art Prompt (Abstract Expressionism): A towering canvas of layered color fields: a deep iron-oxide rectangle hovering above a shadowed midnight band, both softened by smoky, feathery edges; the upper block glows with embered orange leaking into rust, the lower mass cools into indigo-blue with a violet afterglow. Let the surface bloom with velvety, uneven translucency — thin glazes in some places, denser pigment in others — so the colors feel like breathing light. Keep the composition minimal and monumental, with gentle, luminous gradients that appear to float, as if the paint itself is giving off heat; the mood is contemplative, hushed, and reverent, like standing in front of a door that remembers you.
Video Prompt: Begin on the ember-orange field, a slow macro drift revealing velvety pigment grain. Cross-fade into the midnight band below as fine dust motes shimmer in suspended air. Create a pulsing “breath” cycle: colors brighten by a whisper, then recede, edges softly blooming and retreating. Add subtle paper texture and micro-scratches; introduce a faint parallax between upper and lower fields to imply depth. Every 2–3 seconds, dissolve between close-ups and a wide frame so the canvas feels enormous. End on a long, quiet hold as the orange warms and the blue cools, like a final exhale.
Two songs to set the mood:
- Kerala — Bonobo
- Ocean Breathes Salty — Modest Mouse
Follow, comment, and tell me what you want tested, painted, or lovingly nerded-out next.