Saturday, April 2, 2011

Welcome, South Dakota -- the 52 Google States of America

This blog doesn't generate much in the way of comments, and while I know several people read frequently (Thank You!) but don't follow (Thank You!) so I've turned to -- or perhaps better put become somewhat addicted by -- the Google Analytics reports which give me a snapshot of where readers are coming from (and proof that there are indeed readers and I'm not just insanely talking to myself--which I have been known to do, ask any of my coworkers).

On one hand I was impressed that I had readers from 51 of Google's 52 United States of America (the two extra states, if you're curious, being "Washington DC" and "Undefined") pretty early on in this great experiment. Likewise, I had visitors from 6 continents and several dozen countries pretty early on.

But until this week I've been missing South Dakota.

I've tried to fathom an explanation for why my musings would attract interest from the 49 other states (even the non-continental ones for goodness sakes!), federal territory, and undefined corners of our nation but not a single peep from South Dakota. I've been thinking about asking the question publicly, but I thought the mere act of mentioning the state's name might unnaturally attract attention and skew an already highly unscientific survey.

Well that has changed--at some point over the past week, I can't say precisely when--my first visitor from South Dakota has arrived. Welcome to my humble blog, South Dakota.

Curiously, while I've had 15 unique visitors from Moscow (yes, that Moscow) I've still only had one from South Dakota. But that one is welcome. I no longer have a hole in my map.

Google Analytics is not without faults -- it classifies Puerto Rico as a country -- but still I'm amazed by the number of readers (just under 8,000 unique visitors since the beginning of 2010) from the number of places (69 "countries" -- see the note about Puerto Rico above -- with the most popular being the US (7,100), Canada (200), United Kingdom (115), with Japan and Germany rounding out the top five)

As usual, it's probably time I stop rambling, but thanks for reading my blog, especially if you're one of the regulars. Feel free to tell friends --- or to call me an idiot. I actually like it when people disagree with me, as long as there is a logical basis to that disagreement.

Lincoln

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