Does “intuitive” mean anything other than “hopefully useful”? As marketing speak, much is claimed to be “intuitive” which turns out not to be used, not to trigger interest. Maybe it means usable.
Tag: Web, Blogging and Computers
The January Stats Are In
Just to keep you advised of your activities, January 2004 was a big month. Hits up 55% at 2736 daily or 84830 for the month. Visits averaged 411 daily or 12754 for the month – up 19%. These stats are something of a mugs game with spiders, bots, wacky google mis-searches but the hit to visit ratio is good at 6.65 to one. This means each visit on average consists of 6.65 moves throughout on the site. It was 5.38 in December. Visits were from 4921 different places up about 25%.
RSS, reading through syndicated feeds, accounted for only 12% of hits, pretty much where it has been. Dutch hits at 565 exceed those from the UK at 538. The guy in Belize visited 34 times. Hello Belize guy. Top five searches:
- genx
- belinda stronach
- aa gill
- tijuana bibles
- names for teams
At this rate, by 2007, I will account for 36% of all internet traffic, will be a object of desire for porn fans and will also be a candidate for the presidency of the USA. That’s how it works, right?
My USA
The states of these United States with which my corporeal state has been united
Via Mike, is this interesting if fairly useless web tool to make a map if which states you have visited. Much of my claim is based on the big 1966 trek from Mississauga to San Diego, California. A bit of a guess as to the route we took but I recall the painted desert and the Grand Canyon. Why have I never tasted the delights of Delaware? Best state? Maine.
Info Source to Bad Typists
Poached
Have a look at this. Someone is taking my RSS feed and those of others I know and aggregating them on another site and sticking up advertising. How odd. I don’t know if I feel good about this or bad. I certainly have not been asked permission or offered a share of the likely tiny revenue stream from the Google ads. Reminds me of all the bother in the mid-90’s about deep linking, focusing on two news web sites on the Shetlands. Whose stuff is this that I do? I understand it to be mine under the Copyright Act. To the credit of the aggregator, there is no doubt that the attributation to me is there. But does someone else get the chump change for my writing that ought to buy me that Friday Guinness?
The Carnival of Canada’s Prize for Week Seven
In addition to my best picks post for this my week as editor of Carnival of Canucks, I am awarding a prize, a sort of lifetime achievement medallion. It is not going to a person. It is not for a blog. The winner of the first weekly award of merit [and perhaps the last unless the next editors pick it up and run with it] is this somewhat unassuming building in Charlottetown PEI where 12 or so people work and 8 or so blogs are maintained. It is the home of two small web application and design firms, silverorange Inc. and Reinvented Corp. – or something like that. At the moment the following blogs are being updated on a fairly regular basis:
- Acts of Volition: this blog covers web news, pop culture and attracts an amazing volume of readers – when Steve posted petition on a bit of a whim, he got over a thousand responses. When he points out design issues in some web products, the creators sometimes pipe up. He has also started Acts of Volition Radio. Update: they are even talking about Steve this thursday at the Berkman Bloggers Meet.
- CEO Blues: Dan has been on the longest Outward Bound trip in history which has apparently lasted for months up a glacier in BC. He is currently on Day 19 of 21 and, in finding himself, has found himself stinky and mouse infested. It’s time to come home.
- Delta Tango Bravo: Daniel has a gift for the superlative and likes to write about things that strike his taste – paintings, film, archetecture. His taste is good and his white on black design natty.
- newrecruit.org: Stephen runs an on-line hockey web site, talks about web news and posted the best post about advent of winter I have ever seen – important for any award of merit in Canada.
- Reinvented: run by my fifth cousin-in-law, Peter has a run the site since May 1999 and, while it started as a business web site for business news without only 13 posts in 1999, it has evolved and for years been a blog where a discussion can get started and go off in any direction. Update: and when he gets a head of steam, he can get quite specifically upset. Good post.
- Silverorange Labs: Stuff for web application brainiacs. I don’t get much of it. But that’s me. If you are a web
design brainiac read it. Free code here. Is that like saying “free beer tonight” for the rest of the world? - Reinvented Labs: Ditto but more for the Linux and Mac stuff…I think. Unlike the guys at silverorange, Ruk is pretty much a one man show on the tech end and explains things from start to finish.
- Reinvented World: The Rukster’s truest recent obsession are travel books. He most recently reviews a book about a trip in 1950 across the Atlantic in a modified jeep. Scans of gatefold maps a plenty. If you ever, like Pete, have dreamed of having rich pals called Nigel and Geoffery Hyphenated-Name who invite you to tag along in a queue of Land Rovers crossing Bolivia, this place is for you.
Amazing. One red building in a small town Canada and eight views of the world. Oops, forgot one thing. They ran a conference last fall that attracted Dave Winer out of the blue and which also had a blog, too. Nine. Maybe there are more hidden there that I don’t know about.
The Worst
The worst thing ever on the internet. Not sex…not violence…but it will put you off the first and make you contemplate the second. Why? Good Lord Why?
Say Hello to the Consultant!
Here is what I mean. Via Dave3, The New York Times reports that someone has been funded masses to study how links and bookmarks die:
The project, which is being paid for by a three-year $378,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is intended to shed light on the best tools for the job. So far, observation of a few dozen people in their work environments has revealed a hodgepodge of approaches to organizing pages, and bookmarking them is not at the top of the list.
Half a million Canadian to confirm link rot. Good Lord.
“Why Should I Care?”
Brent played the greatest rock drive home record this afternoon, 1973’s “5:15” from Quadrophenia, which it about the thoughts of a stoned kid heading home from a crappy job on a London train. Amazing how the boring old CBC is pushed by this show.
As the greatest teens ever, The Who deserve a come-back but they ran so many farewell tours that they overrode their own nostalgia. With only Roger and Peter left, a duo album would be interesting. In Feburary 1994, there was a two night show in New York of Daltrey singing the songs of Townsend. Pete has a great website. Recent BBC interview with Daltrey here.
Logo
I don’t know why I feel like a logo is required but I messed around with a design last night and came up with this, which I have placed temporarily permanently to the right, scroll down.
I think I have visions of shelves of coffee mugs or a trucker’s cap on Justin Timberlake. I have heard it does not suck. I may tinker and I do reserve the right to have many logos….for my many moods. If Naomi Klein is coming after me it is going to be in a big, big way.