Who Are You Really Talking To on Hive? A Look With HiveScan

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Who Are You Really Talking To on Hive? A Look With HiveScan

Did you know that over the last 90 days I had 127 interactions on Hive, but they were spread across only 20 accounts? I had a rough sense of who I talk to, but a rough sense is not the same as seeing it laid out in front of you.

This is the next part in my series on HiveScan, the Hive block explorer built for everyone, not just developers. Today I want to show you one of my favorite reports in the account analytics section: Social Interactions. It answers a simple but surprisingly hard question, who do you actually interact with on Hive, and how.

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Where to find it

Open any account on hivescan.info and go to its analytics dashboard. From the report library (the "+" to add a report), pick Social Interactions. If you are logged in and using the Creator board, it is already there as the My Social Interactions widget, pointed at your own account.

You can also find it on your account page under Analytics Tab.

It works for any account, not only your own. You can look up someone you admire and see how they spend their social energy on Hive.

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What the picture shows

The main view is a flow diagram. On the left is you. In the middle are the types of interaction. On the right are the people you reached. The thicker the ribbon, the more of that kind of interaction went to that person.

It reads left to right like a little river of your activity. One glance and you can see whether you are mostly replying to a handful of close friends, or spreading votes and follows across a wide crowd.

HiveScan tracks five kinds of interaction:

  • Replies to other people
  • Votes you cast
  • Transfers you send
  • Reblogs you share
  • Follows you make

The numbers at the top

Above the flow there are four quick stats so you do not have to read the chart to get the headline:

  • Unique partners, how many different accounts you reached
  • Top partner, the single account you interacted with most, with the count
  • Top type, which kind of interaction you do the most
  • Top 10 share, how concentrated your activity is on your most-reached accounts

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Things you can actually do with it

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This is where it becomes fun to play with:

  • Switch between Flow and Table. The flow is the pretty picture. The table is sortable, so you can rank partners by replies, by votes, or by total.
  • Filter the types. Each type is a chip at the top with its count. Turn votes off to see only your conversations, or follows off to focus on content. The chart and the export both follow what you selected.
  • Change the time window. Today, 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, all time, or a custom range. Your interaction map looks very different over a week than over three months.
  • Show the top 5, 10, or 15 partners per type, depending on how busy you are.
  • Click any name to jump straight to that account's page on HiveScan.
  • Export to CSV if you want the raw numbers in a spreadsheet.

What mine looked like

Over 90 days, replies were the clear majority, which makes sense since I spend most of my Hive time in conversations. But the picture was not only replies. I also made 18 follows, cast 6 votes, and sent 1 reblog, so you can see all the different ways I show up on the chain in one view. My most-reached account was kerrislravenhill@kerrislravenhill, someone I keep crossing paths with in Ladies of Hive.

It was a nice little mirror. It told me, without me having to guess, that I am a conversationalist on Hive more than a curator or a reblogger. That is useful to know if you ever want to change the balance.

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Why this matters

We all build relationships on Hive, but they are easy to lose track of. This report turns your social footprint into something you can see and check. Creators can spot who their real audience is. Curators can see if they are spreading votes thin or supporting the same few people. And anyone can simply enjoy seeing the shape of their own Hive life.

Go try it on your own account, or on someone whose Hive style you are curious about. It takes about five seconds and it usually tells you something you did not know.

You can explore it here: hivescan.info