New Data: Past Room Topic Available On Stats Pages
A new feature has just rolled out for MyFreeCams and Chaturbate: The Room Topic Archive
What Does The Room Topic Archive Show?
It shows the last 4 room topics set by the model. You have the option to load more topics.
Go ahead, give it a try: Check AmberCutie’s Stats Page.
Are All Topics Available?
No. It would require way too many resources to store every single room topic. Especially with countdowns, it can change hundreds of times in a minute.
I can say that every hour the topics generate around 300 MB of data. Doing the math… then it would be 2.6 TB of data every year. Considering that I am collecting this specific data since 2014, right now I would be storing ~18 TB of data for the topics only. I would probably go with AWS to store this data on DynamoDB, then I would be getting a $4,500 bill every month. And that would be the cost of storing it.
As you can see, storing every single room topic would be the worst idea after the frozen yogurt. The solution I came up with was to store one room topic per hour. What you see is actually the topic the model had on her highest moment in the hour.
Confusing?
Let me explain in detail. During a one-hour period, let’s say between 10 am and 11 am, once per minute (60 times), the bots check how many viewers are in each chat room, and the current room topic. At the end of the hour, a bot processes all the data to calculate the average viewers for each model. After calculating and saving the average, all the data collected for that period is deleted.
Each model has, for each hour they have been online, an entry with her average viewers. The room topic is also included in this row. But since there are 60 different room topics, the bot selects the room topic for the minute when the model had the most viewers.
Careful with how many room topics you load. Theoretically, you can load all the topics. But it depends on how much your browser can handle because, basically, every time you load more topics, it adds 4 lines to the list. If the model has too many room topics, at some point you may end up with a 20,000 lines list, which may take too many resources from your browser/computer.
Why Only MyFreeCams And Chaturbate Got Room Topic?
First, because these were the first two camsites to use the room topic.
Second, it is quite easy to collect that from them, while other camsites complicate so much, mainly because their room topic system was developed kinda as improv. In some situations, the bots would have to join every single chat room every minute to check the room topic.
Third, and the biggest reason, because, as explained before, the room topic is collected together with the viewers. Not every camsite with a room topic feature provides the viewers count. In some camsites, the viewers’ count is not visible at all.
Is This Data Really Relevant?
I would say: meh. But somehow people want to see the room topic.
Years ago, when the last room topic (only the last) started being shown on Stats pages. Nobody said anything. But when a glitch stopped the room topic from being updated, I got more than a few emails complaining about it.
That was when I realized that the room topic is more relevant than I thought.
