Virginia Breeze

Here is an interesting math exercise you can use to boost your blogging spirits. Go to Google Analytics and look up the average time readers spend on your blog(s). Then multiply it times the number of visitors you had in the last thirty days.

Now you have the total amount of time there were eyes on your blog. Sure they were lots of different eyes. But I find it encouraging to think that for 292 hours there was a brain connected to eyes that were connected to something I did here. That’s almost two weeks if my math is correct.

There are all different kinds of statistics associated with blogging. Sometimes you have to dig a little to find one that makes you happy.

Or I do at least. You may be happy all the time.

Do you think that Google Analytics gives an accurate picture of the stats of bloggers? Are there better stat programs out there?

I recently read the a comment here at Virginia Breeze that was so good I am giving it a Best Comment in a Long Time Award. It case you have never heard of this award let me say that it just started today and is a result of this great comment. There’s no little artistic thing made up of 125 by 125 pixels to go along with it. It just is. And the recipient is a very wise person whose name is Evita. And her wonderful blog is here: http://evolvingwellness.com/ I was reading it a little earlier. When I read something that is really, really good the remaining hairs on my head start to do a little dance. And that’s what happened here. It’s a blog about healthy products and healthy living. It’s well written and the author clearly knows a lot about her subject. I need this blog in my life. I need this person in my sphere of blogger buddies. Here’s the comment she wrote. After thinking about what she says I feel a lot better about blogging. I understand why it is a valuable activity for all of us. Hopefully i can share this with you in upcoming posts.

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Does anybody besides me have an unresponsive script message that keeps coming up every time they click on the Dashboard of Wordpress 2.5?

Just wondering. I have not read anywhere about anyone having ANY problems with this new Wordpress. It’s a little bit unnerving because I do have a few problems and I hate being the only one.

One thing for sure is that I am not the only one who has made major mistakes over time as a blogger. There is a long thread propagating over at Problogger.net about this subject and it doesn’t look like its going to stop growing anytime soon.

It’s fascinating reading about the things bloggers regret doing.

I’m not smart enough to understand all the things I should regret doing as a blogger. But I do regret the fact that I never figured out how to file my photos in a meaningful way. I have thousands of photos that need new homes. It’s a mess.

I asked my wife if she would fix it for me. Wisely she said “No”. Actually she said something about not doing it in this lifetime.

So maybe she will want to the next time we come back (if she agrees to marry me again).

Picasa2 is part of the problem. They have their own ideas about filing and I can’t figure out what they are doing. So I’m going to take all the good photos and run them over to Flickr.

Flickr has a great system and it is easy to understand.

But it’s going to take awhile.

A long while.

Meanwhile I sit here waiting for my scripts to settle down and Wordpress to come out with their 2.51 fix.

It’s all about patience. I wish I had been a more patient person when I started blogging. But then I wish I had been more patient when I went to school.

Or was married the first time. Or when I got my first serious job. Or the time I . . . .

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I guess now would be a good time to review the first quarter of activity here at Virginia Breeze. My motivation for blogging is low. Maybe it is spring fever. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone has gone away. I don’t know. But we can put some figures up here for the record and then go do something else. The woodworking shop is calling me.

First of all I would like to share with you a neat and very simple utility I just found for taking screen shots. All you do is right click on take a photo which immediately is sent to Picasa or wherever in JPG form. You can’t ask for better service than that.

And here it is.

And here are all the funny figures courtesy of Google. If I could only look at one stat it would be Google’s top content. Because it tells me what readers are interesting in seeing. And, hopefully, if I am not feeling too stupid when I read this info I will immediately try and create something else that is in some way similar to something at the top of this list.

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Here are the stats from the first quarter. They are nothing to write home about as you can see. Return visits are way too low. The bounce rate is about fifty percent. Time on page is under two minutes.

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And here are the stats from the last thirty days. These tell me that readership has gone up but the amount of time each reader spends here on average has gone down. Sometimes I think that those two things just go together.

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So after about nine months of blogging this is what has happened. A lot of the enthusiasm for blogging has gone out the window. But the need to blog is still with us. And I know much more about how to do it. As we all do if we continue to practice.

Will I continue to do it? A month ago I would have said definitely “yes”. Now I am not so sure. Right now the only readers commenting are fans of Steph Jones, Chris Brown and Rhianna. I don’t even know who Rhianna is. Apparently they are friend’s of Jordin.

I wouldn’t mind except that their comments go like this one from anonymous. . .

“honestly stephan was an enyce model back when i met him here in nyc… he’s not 24-25 he’s got an 8year old daughter check it out and use to roll with Joe the singer. lol its so funny how he embellishes his history… cracker!”

Fascinating.