Big brother is watching you…

I’m getting more and more comfortable with this blogging software. The latest additions are, as you may notice, a list of recent comments in the sidebar, and a different color to my own comments. What you may not notice, since it is not noticeable anywhere, is that I’ve installed some logging equipment — now I can track down what you had for breakfast and the angle of your screen.
Not to worry — that was a slight exaggeration. It’s fun, though. What is recorded is browsers, referrers, number of hits, that kind of things. I notice that a little more than half of the blog readers use Firefox. The statistics I have for the main site (available here) show a Firefox share of around 12-25% (the figures are based on the last 100 hits only, hence the huge variation). The difference is striking — an indication, perhaps, that my plugging in here has been efficient? or that the ones who surf around for more general contents are more likely to be “web-savvy” than those who just come in for the chords?
I also notice that someone has come here through a google search for “small plastic things”… The wonders of session statistics, indeed!

8 thoughts on “Big brother is watching you…”

  1. I’ve wondered whether or not the average surfer is unaware of this blog. The “Things Twice” button blends in well, and the cluster it’s in disappears quickly as the chord-hungry scroll down the frame. I think most people become aware of this blog from the link on the “news” page, which brings you to the first post, “Every decent site has a blog”, sans a siderbar showing subsequent posts. This might make the less observant reader come to the conclusion that there’s only one post. This, to me, is evidenced by the first post having 45 comments, while the others have 0-6. It’s a shame for such interesting posts to seemingly go unnoticed. Perhaps a little more advertising on the main page with a link to the latest post would increase readership.

    I don’t know. . . I could be wrong. . . what does the logging data say?

  2. Truth be told, I did download Firefox because your plugging it, and it is an improvement in my time spent on the web. Additionally, I do feel great about sticking it to the man that is Microsoft and not using IE, (of course I say this while happily using Microsoft Windows XP). Addtionally part two; I will use this opportunity to extend much gratitude for your site which has become my one stop Dylan shop for learning his songs.

  3. Mm, I never understood what exactly logging showed, not being a webmaster. I don’t use Firefox, or anything, I just haven’t got around to moving away from Internet Explorer.

    By the way, I’ve been using your site for a few months now. It’s awesome.

  4. Reindeer Soldier: Probably a good idea to change the News link to the main blog page. As for the number of visitors, I haven’t had the log up for more than a couple of days, but so far, I’ve had c. 500 hits from c. 300 users a day, so it’s not that bad. If you’re interested, I think you can see for yourself on oestrem.com/thingstwice/wp-stattraq/index.php
    As for the main site, I have two different statistics logs. One shows an average of 2000 visits a day. The other shows 20–25,000 page requests a day, but it counts everything, including gif files etc (so that each visit to the main page generates at least four requests).

  5. That’s fantastic that it gets so many hits. I didn’t know for myself, and could only judge by the number of comments. I only meant my comments to be productive and hope no offense was taken.

  6. No offense taken, at all. I hope I didn’t sound offended; there wasn’t supposed to be italics in the “If you’re interested” part — that probably makes a difference) — and the “I think” meant that I was not quite certain if it could be accessed by non-admins.
    I appreciate all comments :-)

  7. Phew. . . I wasn’t sure if you were offended or not (yes, the italics scared me a bit), and couldn’t take the chance.

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