Obsession

Lately, I've been a bit curious . . . no, actually more like obsessed with this blog. Specifically, I've been wondering how many of you out there read this thing. When I first started, I assumed I'd eventually build a circle of a few loyal readers. And that was fine. I figured the blog was more an outlet for me to go on about stuff than anything else. But I don't know. Now, I love hearing that people read my blog. And I want more!

I think my obsession began a few months ago. Some of you may have noticed the little site monitor icon on the right. I added it a while ago when I actually was just a bit curious about my audience. So that you don't freak out and think I'm tracking your every move or anything, the site monitor gives me just some basic demographic information -- how many people have been on, when, from where, for how long. Sometimes it has an ISP address included or more often, the internet provider. Hmm, I guess it is a lot of info. But its not the easiest format for viewing, so honestly, I don't look too closely at the specifics for each visitor. Rather, I just focus on the overall number and the general locations they're coming from.

But this is what got me going a little crazy. Imagine my shock to realize that I actually get more than a small handful of visitors each day. This week already, for example, I've had 30-something hits! I know its not a ton. It's a fairly inflated number too because I know that some of you check daily or multiple times daily (thanks for that by the way! That's awesome). And last week, I got all excited because it looked like some one from Baltimore, MD kept logging on and I couldn't figure out who would log on SO much until I realized that my work's main offices are in Baltimore. Doh! That was me logging on over and over again before I set the monitor to ignore my visits! So I'm sure there are some other visits that can be explained away by me being a little dense. But still, since there are only about 5-6 regular readers that I know about, I'm trying to figure out where the rest of you are coming from. Glancing through the visits, there are at least another 6 regular visitors that I can't identify. For example, I don't know anyone in Arkansas, do I?

What makes it even more puzzling is that the stupid monitor almost always says people log on for 0 seconds. As in, people click over, realize its stupid, and move on. That actually had me feeling a little down at first. Come on, its that bad? But now I'm starting to wonder if the timer is off cuz its hard for me to believe that people would keep coming back over and over again and then clicking away. Right? And the possibility of my blog being caught in some automated computer searches has occurred to me also, but after so many now, its kind of weird. Especially since I've set my blog to not show up on internet searches.

So now, I'm a little fascinated. Who are you guys out there? If you feel like leaving a comment, I'd love to hear from you. And as long as you're doing that, maybe you can offer any suggestions you might have for making the blog more interesting. Cuz that's part of the fixation too . . . now that I'm realizing that I might have a little bit of a regular, audience, I want more. That was part of what all the recent new layout changes have been about -- I want my blog to seem cool to look at. I'll hopefully be including more pictures too, so that'll hopefully help with the visual stuff. But more interesting content would be nice, too, I'm sure. :)

Believe me, I do know though how nice it is to lurk in secret. There are quite a few blogs that I follow without ever making a peep. So if you don't feel like commenting, I suppose its ok. But it has really been driving me nuts. I have been thinking of other ways to increase participation too. Ways to ferret out the number of actual readers without you having to reveal your identities -- maybe a fun weekly poll question or something like that? Stay tuned, I'll see what I can come up with.