Read My Lips - the blog

Digging my way out

OK, the Instalanche has come, and, although it was a real experience to get 1400 to 1500 hits* from a single link on InstaPundit, I really did not find it to be an enjoyable experience. Why? Well, primarily because it was a link to a post that really was not as worthwhile as that hit rate justifies. In the post below I pointed out one that I think would have been worthy of that amount of readership. I would love to have that many people read some of my political commentary, or just come by each day to find a chuckle or two from one or two of my daily offerings. Heck, I was thinking, myself, that the Nightly Navel Gazing Report was developing into something worth the price of admission: a few minutes of your time.

I may not be an academic. I have a BA in Political Science and a Law Degree, so I do have basic educational background to have a somewhat clear understanding of what goes on in the world. My intelligence may be suspect, but it rates among the higher primates in the jungle. I might not be the top banana in the bunch, but I am outta the reach of the smaller monkeys. I am almost absolutely sure that my crap is worth reading, or, at least, some of it is. I am pretty sure that I have five or six daily readers now, so there are some few who seem to agree that I have something worthwhile to offer.

Yet, I have 1500 visitors come to my site and what do they read? A blurb about the effects that one mention by Glenn Reynolds skyrockets visitation rates, commonly referred to as an Instalanche. Was I being punished for noticing that? Or did I just phrase it in such a way as brought a smile to Glenn's face? Why pick that post as the initial showcase of what I have to offer on my site? No, it really doesn't please me. That spike will go away in a week. Although it blew away all of my previous highs in visitation rates, I mean seriously blew them away, there was nothing unique or interesting enough about that particular post to give anyone a reason to venture to my other offerings.

I did actually post an update in the message after I investigated where people went after hitting the link . I concluded that most such visitors just clicked in, maybe read that mundane (not inane) posting and closed out. I added the update suggesting that an opportunity existed for the visitor to look around a bit. Some did. I think if I ever get another Instalanche, I will do another such update before allowing an hour to pass. I really want readers, not hits. Hits are only prospective readers, and, if what they hit is not choice, they don't stay. I know I don't. I sometimes hit a site two or three times before I blogroll it. How I get there depends on where I find the links: trackbacks, comments, or a link on someone's blog that I read. I want you to read my stuff and I want to want to read yours. I am sure there are people who can find absolutely no interest in anything I have to say and I find there are sites in whose content I absolutely find no interest. I kind of like the people like me: the ones who question stuff; the ones who find humor in everything; the ones who don't get seriously bent out of shape as history unfolds and mother nature does her stuff, the ones who have compassion, trust, and belief in the goodness of mankind; and the ones who want to do their share but are not wanting to do more than their share. I call myself a snarky inaniac™ and I believe that to be a "fair and balanced" way of looking at myself. What do daily readers of mine think?

Run this one up the pole as Tiger Rags about being badly Instalanched.

Posted by Tiger at August 20, 2003 09:22 PM