Statistics don't lie. Well, SOMETIMES they don't lie.

Recently several of my friends...Stephen at Chubby Chatterbox and Bruce at Oddball Observations....looked back on their blogging stats and shared what they found.  They both are a pleasure to read and deserve their success.  I never paid much attention to mine, so I thought I'd peek and see what lurked in my numbers.

This is my 824th post here at Blogger.  Up to this morning I've had 96,385 pageviews.  Almost all were from the US, with Germany, Canada, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, China, France, Ukraine, and Serbia rounding out the rest.  I suspect the ones from Russia, China, Ukraine, and Serbia were those who just spread spam.  I think the rest were probably legitimate.  

My most read post was one titled "Reality TV....the race to the bottom" with 483 pageviews.  Like everyone I throw out some fluff pieces, too....you know, posts about cars and clouds and such.  But I also like to put out some discussing current events and editorial pieces that hopefully make people think....and disagree.  I enjoy hearing differing opinions.  They make ME think.

Before this I participated on Journal Space, which contained a remarkable group of writers and readers.  It went abruptly kaput so I have no idea what my numbers were.  As best I can recall they were up in the several hundred thousands.  One in particular stands out:  It was the first "conversation" I ever had with my future wife, K.  :)

I also read and post on Facebook, but frankly, that site is pretty bland.  It seems to me it's the site people go to who don't want to think.  But if you want a killer cupcake recipe or a picture of a cute puppy*....  ;)

Thanks to those who put up with me.

S

*Don't get me wrong, I like eating a good cupcake and playing with a cute puppy, but it just doesn't make for very stimulating conversation.

Social media backfires

Besides just being a fun way to keep up with what friends are doing, social media has become much more.  Over the past several years for example it has helped bring down numerous mid-eastern governments.  People in one city can see in real time atrocities being committed in another city hundreds of miles away, inflaming passions and helping to coordinate revolutions.  Syria is on the cusp of that right now, and Facebook is in the thick of it.  It's become a sort of 21st century version of "the pen is mightier than the sword".


But now we learn social media can be used to squash Spring Break here at home, too.  I guess you could say it's turned Spring Break into Spring Brake.  The kid's fear is that a video with them in it doing things that could cause dear old mom and dad to cut off their cash might go viral.  Talk about unintended consequences! 


And in a similar "you heard it here first" vein, it seems scientists have discovered that male fruit flies rejected by females drink significantly more alcohol than those that have mated.  Interesting.  I didn't even know friut flies went on Spring Break. (I wonder if that was a taxpayer funded study?)


Yeah, it's a slow news day.  That's all I have.  :)


S