Monday, June 18, 2012

Commo Problems

The home computer slipped into it's black dress and sauntered off down to the local electronics dive bar for a pick-me-up. That is, Mojo had to take the laptop in for some serious borescoping and a pullover. The damn thing was so slow and kludgy that it's either got some feelin'-like-I'm-fixin'-to-die hard drive issues or has been virused with something nasty. Hopefully the good people at our local Computer Wash can clean it up and get it feeling a little more peppy.

But until then the noise-to-signal ratio is pretty harsh.

But the sad truth, though, is that I'm not exactly full of ideas at the moment; a recent perusal of the new Blogger format has me feeling a little mopey.

The new telltale that gives you the views for each post is kinda depressing. I thought that this was a semi-interesting blog; I was used to the idea that I got 600-700 pageviews a day. That seemed like a decent amount of interest for a little random private blog that I use mostly for my own vanity and entertainment.

But the per-post views make the source of almost all my traffic pretty clear;

1) the "Decisive Battles" posts,
2) anything with smut in it, and
3) damn near nothing else.

Now I respect all Internet traditions and I know that the 'net is for porn, but, damn; I really don't seem myself turning this thing into a war/porn site.

But it seems like nothing else holds fashion.

I need to think a little more about where I want to take this place.

And I'm curious; would you regular readers (assuming there is such a thing) follow this dog if it was reduced primarily to the "Battles" posts, with the occasional sidetrack into geology, Vargas pin-ups, and Tom of Finland?

Feel free to let me have it.

8 comments:

Lisa said...

I neither like nor understand the changes Blogger hath wrought. Nothing seems better, IMHO, and I am skeptical about any new analytics.

I am sure you have a good and faithful readership. I once heard that one receives perhaps one comment per 1,000 views.

In any event, we, your faithful, will appreciate whatever you bring to the virtual table, I am sure :)

Barry DeCicco said...

You forgot the decisive battle in this post :)

labrys said...

I refuse to be encapsulated in a single posting genre, myself.

And you did say something somewhere about firing for effect....

:::back to supervising the making of warriors' mead:::

Leon said...

Chief, I'm gonna break it to you gently here...

I don't come to this blog for smut/pr0n. I have google for that. I do come for all of your ramblings.

So regardless of whether you write about decisive (or decisive battles that really aren't - see what I did there?) battles, your kids gardening, Mojo, your soccer team, what have you, I'll still read it. You write interesting stuff and bugger the page views. You've got a hard core of followers and and in today's modern world quality is better than quantity (I'd point to the Pirates of the Caribbean series as proof).

FDChief said...

Hmmm.

It's never a good idea to give anyone license to amuse themselves; what emerges tends to be ridiculous if it's not vicious or puerile.

But I will at least consider keeping this a Blog of All Talents...

Mind you, there will be little of note until the damn laptop computer returns from its wanderings, hopefully a little less bloated, surly, and unmanageable.

Ael said...

Do the metrics distinguish between general home page views and article views? It may be a measurement issue. Do general "home page" clicks accrue to the top article? A "home page" bucket?

Short posts may not produce any article clicks because the person already read the whole article. Posts that come shortly before other posts may get "starved" of clicks because they are superceded.

Leon said...

I'd also ask how does this thingy count people who read this blog via RSS feeds (like myself)?

londoner said...

Hi Chief,

I haven't commented on your blog before, but I'd just like to say that I read the blog (through RSS -- does your pageviews count that?) for your rambling as much as for Decisive Battles.

(Incidentally, if you weren't swamped by enough pleas already, I really must suggest that you should write a Decisive Battles book.)