Prison Pete
Friday, August 18, 2006
Who is reading about my dreadful life?
I read with interest the AOL searches article that appeared on the front page of last Wednesday's NY Times.
While I realize they (and I am not sure who "they" are) were able to identify that woman, there still are two big unexplained leaps. The article states there were over 20 million search queries. So out of all those requests, I suppose sorted by the "confidential" id number, how did they pick out her group of queries?
Secondly, even with the mention of her last name in the searches, you would still need to be in contact with a local person that knows about her dog that pees all over the place.
I liked the blog search phrases you sent me. The "Prison Pete" ones would come mostly from people I told I had a blog and the name of it I would think. Or is it just a quick way to get to the blog if you lose a bookmark?
While I am thinking of it, I think if you type your name (or any other phrase?) in Google doesn't it tell you how many other people have entered that name or term? If so I would be interested in an occasional update of how many Prison Pete searches there are.
I appreciated you sending me the reference list for some of the blog activity. It is interesting that some are pretty specific (city, state) and others are just United States. Obviously, if I were out there searching, I would want my footprint to be the generic USA one. Do you know what the difference is?
The report by the domain names which showed the page views and visit length was interesting too. I wonder how many of the 0:00 visit lengths were readers checking for new posts or were others who ended up at the blog from a search engine?
I was wondering how much serious reading was being done if the average visit was under two minutes. I would rather see a few longer readers than a bunch of two or three minute ones. The number of people that actually take the time to read the blog, while certainly a small percentage of the visits, makes me feel a little better about the lack of comments.
I was trying to figure out if I had fifty people stopping by, why would not at least one or two leave a comment? If only fifteen out of fifty spent any time reading the blog and seven of those were under two minutes, then I do not feel so bad about the lack of comments.
However, let me state for the record that I certainly appreciate any time a person spends reading about my dreadful life, and thank you for your time.
Please feel free to stop by and read a page or two anytime and do not be afraid to leave a comment every now and then.
While I realize they (and I am not sure who "they" are) were able to identify that woman, there still are two big unexplained leaps. The article states there were over 20 million search queries. So out of all those requests, I suppose sorted by the "confidential" id number, how did they pick out her group of queries?
Secondly, even with the mention of her last name in the searches, you would still need to be in contact with a local person that knows about her dog that pees all over the place.
I liked the blog search phrases you sent me. The "Prison Pete" ones would come mostly from people I told I had a blog and the name of it I would think. Or is it just a quick way to get to the blog if you lose a bookmark?
While I am thinking of it, I think if you type your name (or any other phrase?) in Google doesn't it tell you how many other people have entered that name or term? If so I would be interested in an occasional update of how many Prison Pete searches there are.
I appreciated you sending me the reference list for some of the blog activity. It is interesting that some are pretty specific (city, state) and others are just United States. Obviously, if I were out there searching, I would want my footprint to be the generic USA one. Do you know what the difference is?
The report by the domain names which showed the page views and visit length was interesting too. I wonder how many of the 0:00 visit lengths were readers checking for new posts or were others who ended up at the blog from a search engine?
I was wondering how much serious reading was being done if the average visit was under two minutes. I would rather see a few longer readers than a bunch of two or three minute ones. The number of people that actually take the time to read the blog, while certainly a small percentage of the visits, makes me feel a little better about the lack of comments.
I was trying to figure out if I had fifty people stopping by, why would not at least one or two leave a comment? If only fifteen out of fifty spent any time reading the blog and seven of those were under two minutes, then I do not feel so bad about the lack of comments.
However, let me state for the record that I certainly appreciate any time a person spends reading about my dreadful life, and thank you for your time.
Please feel free to stop by and read a page or two anytime and do not be afraid to leave a comment every now and then.
Comments:
I'm still reading, Pete. I know I owe you a letter and I'm working on getting it sent out. I archived my blogs to print out for you, but now my printer isn't working.
But I do still read and will get in touch with you soon.
But I do still read and will get in touch with you soon.
Heya Pete!
I had ideas a year or so ago about writing you, but decided to go with comments instead. I knew I'd make a lousy penpal!
One note on stats: I don't think stat counter counts RSS feeds. I subscribe to your blog and it goes pretty much straight to my mailbox. Since I'm not clicking your page or even clicking in from my own blog, there isn't an official count for folks like me. So you are getting a bit of an under-count.
As for the small number of comments, I can only speak for myself. For one thing, I subscribe to over 50 blogs plus write 5 of my own. I try to drop comments when I have both sufficient cause and sufficient opportunity. I get close to 300 page loads a day on one blog, and less than 1% comment unless I write something really abrasive.
And since I'm subscribing, I sometimes don't get the articles for a day or two as the feed isn't flawless. So like when you get behind in reading the NYT, I often get behind on blogs and then the articles are pretty old by the time I get caught up! If your editor subscribed and copied all of the articles from all of the blogs on your blogroll, you might be looking at over 20 pages per day! And that would be a slow day!
On searching:
The "Prison Pete" search might be people searching out any other media articles about you. If another blog talks about you, this is a good way to find out who it is and what they say.
Amazingly enough, the ice maker posts probably became a big deal during the heat wave. Having just read your post, I discovered that the central AC in my house wasn't working. The cooling fins were clogged with ice! Thanks to your article, I knew to let the ice melt (and clean my filter in the meantime) and all was well! So a body never knows when and where they'll come across good information.
Since I'm being chatty...
It's too bad they won't let you get your hands on an old P2 or P3 computer and put some free Linux distro with some open source stuff on there for you to play with. You might actually be able to use your ability to contribute to the community.
As long as you keep posting, I'll keep reading. One never knows when I may need to know whether squid or octopus has more calories.
D.
I had ideas a year or so ago about writing you, but decided to go with comments instead. I knew I'd make a lousy penpal!
One note on stats: I don't think stat counter counts RSS feeds. I subscribe to your blog and it goes pretty much straight to my mailbox. Since I'm not clicking your page or even clicking in from my own blog, there isn't an official count for folks like me. So you are getting a bit of an under-count.
As for the small number of comments, I can only speak for myself. For one thing, I subscribe to over 50 blogs plus write 5 of my own. I try to drop comments when I have both sufficient cause and sufficient opportunity. I get close to 300 page loads a day on one blog, and less than 1% comment unless I write something really abrasive.
And since I'm subscribing, I sometimes don't get the articles for a day or two as the feed isn't flawless. So like when you get behind in reading the NYT, I often get behind on blogs and then the articles are pretty old by the time I get caught up! If your editor subscribed and copied all of the articles from all of the blogs on your blogroll, you might be looking at over 20 pages per day! And that would be a slow day!
On searching:
The "Prison Pete" search might be people searching out any other media articles about you. If another blog talks about you, this is a good way to find out who it is and what they say.
Amazingly enough, the ice maker posts probably became a big deal during the heat wave. Having just read your post, I discovered that the central AC in my house wasn't working. The cooling fins were clogged with ice! Thanks to your article, I knew to let the ice melt (and clean my filter in the meantime) and all was well! So a body never knows when and where they'll come across good information.
Since I'm being chatty...
It's too bad they won't let you get your hands on an old P2 or P3 computer and put some free Linux distro with some open source stuff on there for you to play with. You might actually be able to use your ability to contribute to the community.
As long as you keep posting, I'll keep reading. One never knows when I may need to know whether squid or octopus has more calories.
D.
Hello Pete and the editor,
I read your blog every time you update. And I have mentioned your blog on my blog and on a few message boards.
Post a Comment
I read your blog every time you update. And I have mentioned your blog on my blog and on a few message boards.
