Thursday, November 17, 2005

'Boys with Toys' and all that .....

You have to understand I am a man of a certain age where all this technology is still something of a novelty. The expression ‘Boys with Toys’ comes to mind :-)

It seems every day I am amazed by the potential of modern communication methods through technology - even if the language of the geeks leaves me cold and confused.

I have just registered with an organisation
that provides me with feedback about visits to Simplicity Blog. I find all this really exciting – and yes I know I should get a life!

For instance among the last 100 visitors to Simplicity are people from the following 17 countries:

United Kingdom, France, Spain, India, America, Belgium, Pakistan, Australia, Japan, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Canada, Netherlands, Denmark, Hungary and Argentina.

I can get all sorts of information from my provider including visits per hour, per day, per week, per month, per year and predictions for the same periods based on current usage. I even get a world map graphic with dots showing the location of the last 100 visitors!

I understand that Simplicity Blog has an average of 55 visitors per day and the average length of visit is 1.25 minutes

I guess the information is only really of interest to me as the owner of Simplicity Blog but my point is how fantastic that I can have easy and free access to this information.

We have to ask ourselves about privacy and ‘big brother’ I guess, but to me it is just wonderful - I see all this as an opportunity rather than a threat..

Information such as this is useful for me to know and can help me change the Blog content if I see a change in the trends of visits.

Oh well … just thought I would share that …. The numbers people may be interested. I am not a numbers person actually but it does fascinate me.

Do you think I should get out more?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that is pretty cool. You are obviously getting a lot of interest in your site. The interest appears to be global. I think many people visit blogs but do not get involved with responses etc... It seems as though many people are information seekers. It find it fascinating.

Trevor Gay said...

I bet you and I both liked trains sets when we were kids Rocky :-)

I think it is wonderful to have this infomation at our fingertips in seconds.

Anonymous said...

Trevor, it looks like the people who are doing this are using some basic and "been 'round a while' tools like histograms, etc. I think this is pretty cool, too, but because I live with these things every day in manufacturing. We've been using these trend analysis and statistical control tools for decades. Dr. Deming and his associates were developing them as far back as the late 1920s. The 'modern' tech comes from the lighted maps and other neat ways they present the data to you, rather than bore you with a lot of statistical tables, etc.

And no, I don't think you need to get a life. You may need to get an AFDB, though. Follow this shortcut from Seth Godin's blog...

http://zapatopi.net/afdb/

Trevor Gay said...

Brilliant Mike - I must get an AFDB - hilarious!!

Seth Godin is like me - folically challenged - a wonderful and growing club to belong to :-)

Anonymous said...

Just try not to hurt your index finger by clicking too much at the "refresh" button in your browser while looking at your site's statistics.

;)

GS

Trevor Gay said...

You worked out my secret Gabriel!!! :-)