StumbleUpon, out of which Mix grew, used to give a misleadingly inflated figure for page views because it sent people straight to the recommended page without any kind of preview to allow them to decide first whether it was one they might be interested in. I’m wondering if Mix is starting to suffer from the same problem. The iPad app was recently updated and I’ve noticed that I’m seeing a lot more cookie notices and sign-up nag screens than I did before, suggesting that the app now displays the the underlying page directly (rather than any kind of preview) in a frame. At the same time, I’m noticing that some of my Medium posts are suddenly getting more traffic from Mix, but without a corresponding increase in the read ratio!

In the short term, I’m going to use the iPad app less and the Mix web interface more. But I think I may also need to stop “mixing” my posts on Medium to avoid depressing my read ratio — while at the same time inflating my page views. If so, it’s unfortunate.