Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The New Widget



Have you all noticed the new little widget over there at the bottom of the right hand column? It's a live traffic map called FEEDJIT and each little red square marks a visitor to the blog. Mouse over and click on the map to enlarge it and see little flags pop up. Click on the flag to see where the readers are and what they clicked on.

Around North Carolina, the flags are so thick it's not always easy to pick out individuals but as they thin out I can sometimes guess who's who. St. Louis is likely my old college friend Susan; Jamestown, NY must be my sister-in-law's friend who monitors the blog and passes along news of my doings to my computer-free sister-in-law.

Others are what I would call birds of passage-- folks who are surfing around, hitting that tempting little NEXT BLOG button at the top of the page. How else to account for a visitor from Taiwan and others from Kuala Lumpur, Greece, and Brazil? Still, it's fun to think they lighted here, however briefly.

Some, I suspect, Googled a subject and were directed to one of my posts -- a person in Baton Rouge was checking out Lagniappe and two different people hit on White Frosting -- were they baking cakes and were they disappointed to find out I was talking about snow? And then there were two people in the south of France, one in Nimes, one in Montpellier, both of whom hit on Night Blooming Cereus -- do they know each other? Did one send a link to the other?

It's fascinating to see the effects of that world wide web!





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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so cool! I was wondering what that little map thing-y was. And I found my flag, although the town listed is the next one over. Maps are endlessly fascinating - they present such possibilities.

Ana - The Writer Today said...

When you see it all on a world map it put it all in perspective and does not seem that we are all so far away after all. I found your blog through the North Carolina Writers Network. You posted a comment on the writers conference in November and were a speaker too. I am sorry I missed this conference, I did not know about it until it was too late.

Vicki Lane said...

Hey, Karen -- boy, I can't resist a map. This one blows up really well. And all those exotic names!

And AVR -- welcome to the blog! You did miss a good conference -- with Ron Rash speaking.
Hope to meet you another time1