Tuesday, July 19, 2005

To Blog or not to Blog?

I started Blogging for 2 reasons.
  1. Because Gareth had been pestering me for months.
  2. Because I hoped that my friends would congregate and chat there, so I would no longer be cluttering up my or their inboxes with "chat".

It's not worked. James and I chat a bit as do Gareth and I, but beyond that not one of my other friends seems to be bothered to read this blog (or comment on it).

I think I am going to return to mass emails which at least spark some chat to break up the day.

I'll keep the blog going, but it hasn't taken off like I would have hoped.

11 comments:

GF said...

Is it not the case that for people to comment you've created the pre-requisite that they must register and then log-in rather than leave make it a 'free option'?

That would put me off if I wasn't a registered user.

As for James, well I think it's cool as he reads my blog on a fairly regular basis, and i do his now - so unlike the emails - I feel like I've made a new friend!! :)

GF said...

...besides, you've started it now....don't give up, have faith! :)

Jase said...

Well that was my mistake then. Hopefully I have rectified that now and anyone can comment without needing to register.

Anonymous said...

Konnichiwa from Japan.
I'm too shy to say more than this, but I am reading!

James said...

Yes Gareth, I do read yours!! I've never really been a big fan of round-robin e-mails, but your name means much more now. And thanks to the Blog, I got my Johnny Ball pic. :-)

GF said...

Yes, I'm not a big round-robin email fan (I'm sure we can create at meaningful or amusing acronym for that) either. So much prefer the Blog, and now comments seem to be working too... :)

When I started my blog last October I got about 3 hits a day I now average about 30-40, so it's worth spreading the word, and updating regularly Jason - (and let's face it how regular did you send a group spam, err I mean email?).

James said...

You can check hits?? How can you do that? [PS. I never send group e-mails so Blog is best. :-)]

GF said...

James, if you go to www.statcounter.com and register (it's free), then go to Add New Project.

Choose Add Standard StatCounter Project, fill out the details and click Create Project. - I'd recommend not making the Stats Public (leave the last box unchecked).

From there you can then view My Projects and then click Configure (spanner icon).

There are a list of things you can now do, but for now click the Install Code option. Copy the code in the text box and paste it below the < body > tag in your Blogger template. The Blogger template can be edited by choosing Template from the Blogger Dashboard. Save template changes and re-publish.

One thing you might not want to do is count your own visits to the blog, this can be done in StatCounter by again within the configuration screen (spanner icon) click the Create Blocking Cooking link. Once there click the 'Stop Logging My Visits' button.

Let me know how you get on, sounds fiddly but it really isn't.

Jase said...

Hello back to my anonymous NEC friends!

James said...

Cheers Gareth. I *think* I've done it. Need some visitors now. ;-)

GF said...

Good to hear - I've visited, so hopefully you'll see some visits - the best place to see who and when is the 'Vistor Paths' link on the left-hand menu.