Statistics

Ok, so I am a little vain and would like to think the whole world might be listening in to my blog. I know better. I currently am using both Sitemeter and Google stats. Sitemeter shows a lot more detail like where the viewer is from, what brought them there and a few other things. However it does not pick up views by readers unless they click through to the original post. It does however pick up folks just hitting the "next blog" button which I myself have used several times to find new blogs to follow. Many have been the times I wondered if anybody was reading my posts. Recently Google stats have come on line and it picks up many more hits, including those through Google reader. But it does not give much detail as to the identity and location of the person reading my posts.

I am pretty sure neither of these counters, either separately or together, give me a true reading of who and why is reading my blog but at least I know some one is. Most of the time when I can see the detail I can pretty much guess by location who it is. Probably the most intriguing is a regular reader in New York. The only person I have known there is a lady I went to school with, J, that I never got to date but I was welcome by her mom to stop by for baked goods any time I wanted. Last I heard, from her mom, she was in New York (many years ago) doing some kind of teaching for under privileged kids. Note this is my blog and I can dream all I want. :-)

I know a lot of folks give up on their blogs after they become active on Facebook but to me they are two separate means of expression, one for the the immediate and one for the permanent, and as long as still I enjoy writing it and folks still read it I intend to keep up both.