In a library meeting yesterday with a consultant: “So this newsletter you send out, how many people receive the email?” “Twenty thousand, but only seven thousand open it.” “Wow, that’s a great open rate.” It’s the first time I heard these figures. I’m finance, not marketing. At work, someone else worries about website stats. But … Continue reading Open Rate
Stats
Now what?
WordPress modified their reader again. And like always, they did it without explanation. Now a little graph with numbers appears opposite the likes and comments when I browse the blogs I follow. I can’t figure out what it means. I tried to Google it. No scrap that, I tried to Bing it. I’ve stopped using … Continue reading Now what?
A Parade of Names
Congrats! The Other Stuff is getting noticed. herekittykitty and 3,898 others have started receiving updates. Yay, a new follower. A parade of names, thousands of them. Are any of them real? They arrive, a steady drip, three, four, seven a day. Names lacking an account, just a string of letters—sometimes numbers—linked to nothing, maybe there's … Continue reading A Parade of Names
Redux
Blog stats: Ring Dings—six page views today. Published five years ago, suddenly it’s viral. Practically viral, at least for me. Did somebody email out the URL? Maybe it’s the “MORE ON WORDPRESS” recommendation at the bottom of somebody’s post. I wish I used better analytics. I’d like to know where the readers come from. Did … Continue reading Redux
Judgement
Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge? -- From the Three Billy Goat's Gruff (a Norwegian folktale) Do you watch your stats? I do. As much as I’d like to ‘write for myself’—something bloggers always suggest whenever I bring up the topic of blog stats—I spend too much time worrying about what others think. I look … Continue reading Judgement
The New Math
Original image from the Washington Post. Note added on January 12th: 870,467 cases today.
Too Much Thinking
Can you stand another post about insecurity? Someone must like these posts. I would. I feel relief when I see someone who is more neurotic than me. I get a small rush from comparing favorably. Last week I complained that no one reads my blog. This week, you guessed it, I’m read too much. It … Continue reading Too Much Thinking
Whatever, Whenever, Where Ever
Thirty years ago, my friends and I took an overnight camping trip. About twenty of us hiked from a roadside trailhead to the top of a smallish mountain in the Shenandoahs—the Virginia and West Virginia section of the Appalachian Mountains. Some of us wore metal-framed hiking backpacks, tent and sleeping bag lashed to the outside. … Continue reading Whatever, Whenever, Where Ever
Naked
“I was on your website this morning; I don’t get it.” This was my dad. I saw him yesterday for my extended family Christmas celebration. This post isn’t about family relationships, but of course it could be. We all have so much fertile ground to till on that topic. But then I wouldn’t be writing … Continue reading Naked
The Other Stuff 