* How do you find a title for such a mish-mash of a post??
Saw this on instapundit: “I’ve found that bloggers seldom match the mental image one has — but that once they start talking, they usually sound just like their blogs.” Those of you who know me in person, do I sound like my blog? Or rather does my blog sound like me?
I do wonder who reads this blog now. I get a weekly report from the free hit counter Site Meter, but it just tells me how many visits and page views per week. Usually I barely glance at these reports anyway, since they don’t tell me where the visitors are coming from. And I haven’t wanted to get fixated on trying to increase my hits per week. (Although, looking at the reports now, last week I had 4,129 visits as opposed to 909 at the end of July – okay, maybe most of the recorded views are not just me admiring my handiwork over and over 😉 ) If you feel so inclined, do leave me a comment 1 so I know you’ve read the blog. Even if you’re one of my valued regulars – Israd, Cherry, Mooiness, tfp, Anna, Miss L, Fiona, M, MR… (who have I missed?)
It’s great that there are so many free blogging tools and services available for newbies like me to play with. A free blog hosting service like Blogger has been invaluable for getting me started. And yet, I’ve been noticing a few comments from other bloggers along the lines of how using free blog hosting services are bad, bad, bad. It irks me when the implication is that it is just somehow not sexy to be a “naïve beginner”. That said, I have been thinking about what I want to do with this blog in the near future. But what name should I get?? www.constancewiebrands.com sounds too painful, www.ruminations.com sounds like a New Age site selling angels or something, and www.flexnib.com sounds like something only a fountain pen lover could want.
I think I prefer a list like this one, which focuses on content:
1. Credibility
2. Authority
3. Passion
4. Personality
5. Reliability
6. Empathy
7. Reality
8. Unique
9. Timeliness
10. Membership
Much better.
1If you get a little confused with all the options when trying to leave a comment, feel free to select anonymous but leave me your first name in the content of your post. Or read the section on Comments from my other blog. Feel free to email me instead if you prefer.
Categories: blogging, blogs
4 Comments
First of all – you had two blogs all along, running parallel with each other! Well I had an inkling but I didn’t know they were both started around the same time. 🙂
re: site stats, try Statcounter.com instead – their stats show you a lot more details than Sitemeter’s. For example, the IPs of visitors with reverse DNS.
As for the criticism about ppl using free blog services with non-unique domain names, I can see a reason for a corporate blog to have a unique domain name but for personal I just go with what feels the best, free or not.
And right now, Blogspot (and “free”) is enough for my purposes.
Suggestions for a domain name: it doesn’t have to revolve around ur name/nick. You can pick a personal characteristic and exaggerate it. 🙂
Yes. Your blog sounds like you – that’s the best thing about it. 🙂
Mooiness: ya, two blogs! But this one is my preferred one, I have to admit. Re the domain name, now what personal characteristic can I pick??? Will have to think about this one… 🙂
Oh, and thanks for the Statcounter recommendation, will check them out.
Cherry: Ta 🙂
No brilliant blog name ideas (actually, I’m pretty short on brilliant ideas in general, which, combined with a severe lack of time, explains the non-blogging I’ve been doing of late). Anyway, I just wanted to go on the record as having nothing against free blogging software, though I am thinking of moving lis.dom over to my main site, but that’s mostly because I’d like to have some added functionality, and I’m already paying for it anyway.