Visits, Blogging, Notify Lists

Posted on March 31, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi      6 Comments

One of the unexpected side benefits of switching over to Movable Type seems to be that overall unique visits are way up: About 50% increase on work days and a 100% increase on weekends (which, by way of explanation, typically have fewer visits). The number of raw access is also way, way up, but that’s a very unreliable guide to use, not in the least because I’m a pathological reloader of the Whatever page (It’s the default home page for my browser and I open and close that thing about 100 times a day) which skews the accesses ridiculously. Unique visits is a more reliable metric, though of course not totally reliable.

I don’t know that the increase in unique visits actually means that I’m getting more visitors; since at least some of the people who access the site use ISPs that feature dynamic or floating IPs (which change every time the user signs on), it could be the same number of people, just accessing more than once day because now I’m posting random bits daily at irregular intervals (ahem) rather than every couple of days. Be that as it may, it feels a little more lively in here, if only people are also now floating me ‘tude in the comments. So who knows. Maybe there are actually more people visiting.

People have commented that they like the fact I’m posting more often, which is very nice for my ego, although I hope there’s not direct quality/quantity ratio going on, in which the more I most, the more likely it is to be crap (which has been known to happen on occasion). Now that I’ve been fiddling with MT for about a week, I do suspect that my more increased updating will become a fixture, although by way of fair warning I do have to note that I formally begin writing my next novel starting tomorrow (and will be begin writing The Book of the Dumb shortly thereafter), so I wouldn’t continue to expect the four-to-five post speed I’ve been going at recently, unless they’re really short, very blog-like bits.

Which brings up, once again, the side issue of whether I’m now formally “blogging,” since more than one person has applied the “if the shoe fits” rationale to me here — if I’m updating more than daily while using software explicitly designed for blogging, shouldn’t I reasonably be construed to be a blogger? My response: Could be. Honestly, if it makes you happy to call me a blogger, go right ahead.

However, I personally don’t think of myself as a blogger because I think of myself as a writer. Which is to say, I think many people who blog are writers because one typically has to write in order to blog (although “v-blogging” could change that over time). Whereas if I do indeed blog, it’s because it’s just another way to write, and that’s what my focus is. It’d be a little much to say I was an “accidental blogger,” but I think it’s perfectly correct to say that I’m an “incidental blogger.”

So anyway, if you like, call me a blogger (or if you’re from the previous iterative generation of online writing, call me a journaller). I’ll just be happy to continue calling myself a writer. It’s a good enough title for me.

A couple of people have asked if I wouldn’t mind putting together a notify list, so they know when I’ve updated. I think MT allows for that, although I have to rumble through its guts to be sure. As a general thing, I myself don’t sign up for notify lists (I prefer to visit people’s sites and curse at them roundly when they don’t update fast enough to amuse me), so I’m honestly kind of unfamiliar with how they work. So let me get back to you on that. I do know that if it’s a whole lot more work, I’m probably going to be less inclined to do it. The whole point of moving to MT was to reduce the annoying aspects of updating, so adding more annoyances to the process isn’t likely to appeal to my finely calibrated sense of slothfulness.