Monday, May 18, 2009

An unsolicited, unpaid testimonial-Sitemeter

How many times have you seen The Hunt For Red October?

Remember Jack Ryan's line as Jeffery Van Pelt signs Jack up to recover the Russian sub? "I'm just an analyst", sayeth Jack.

So am I. Most of my professional career was spent as a management consultant. I loved digging through mounds of nonsense in an attempt to identify a clients real problem. I hated symptom solving. I had to know the details.

After retiring my brain went on hold for several years, and then I began this blog.

As night follows twilight, I wanted to know more. Being simple minded, my first thought was how many people come here? So I added a peg counter.

That wasn't enough, so I devised spread sheets. How many per day, then how many by day of the week.

After a very short time I realized that this was way too male, and clearly I had too much time on my hands. So I got over myself. For a while.

Last week the counter died, and I said good riddance. That didn't last.

A month or so ago, on MOTR's blog Abnormally Normal I found IT.

Sitemeter

If you have a lick of curiosity about your own blog, I highly recommend it. It answers many of your most curious questions. Everything but why. Click on the bug at the bottom of the page, and look around. It will tell more about you than you ever imagined.

Tells from where, when, how long, by day, by hour..... The analyst in me is doing back flips.

So now I either have to get rid of it quickly, or find something more productive to do.

Don't be too surprised if you see it gone in a few days. Information overload may take over before I begin. Better yet, I find a more useful use for my time.

Toad

12 comments:

preppyplayer said...

What I like about my site meter is I now know the key words that bring people to my site...
of course preppy is in there but sometimes I am very surprised.
My sister's leading keyword phrase is "gay penguins", this due to a post on actual gay penguins at her local zoo in Bremen, Germany.

I also love that I can tell how often my sisters actually read my blog, because their towns come up on the meter!

kathleen said...

I'll have to check it out. I've been using Google Analytics to see the stats for my blog.

longwing said...

Currently doing without stats. I tend to be kind of obsessive. Just better off not knowing. But I do care.

David said...

I have sitemeter, I like it. The only thing I really look at is where my hits come from, but it's nice to know the other stuff is there should I want to delve deeper.

ADG said...

Toad...darn you man. I loaded it this morning and have been playing on it since.

Toad said...

For whatever reason I have absolutely no curiosity about who comes here. Since I'm used to it I look at the peg counts, and the countries.

Every day I am more and more floored by what I see.

EatPlayLove said...

You just made me laugh. I'm a bigger fan of statcounter, but I know what you mean. My love is for the world map and seeing where people are dropping by from, oh and their google keyword searches are tops!

Mom on the Run said...

I just put it on mine so I could tell when the girls had been on my blog, and to see how many local hits I get to see how much "filtering" I need to do.

But it is fun. Sometimes I go a couple of weeks without even looking at it. I don't get a whole lot of traffic, which is fine with me. Considering my subject matter, I'm surprised I get any traffic at all!

Toad said...

MOTR you are too modest.

Ronda said...

I just helped flip your meter.

Toad said...

Ronda, I don't believe I'll share that with my wife.

Kathy said...

I'm glad you don't check to see who comes to visit when. I probably look like an attention-deficit medication candidate the way I pop around my favorite sites. I should spend so much time writing for my own blog!