Fun With Referrals

I love to go through my referrer logs. I imagine everyone with a blog does -- they let a writer know that, in fact, someone is reading, even if it's only a couple of friends and your mom (hi Mom!).

I've found a lot of great blogs by looking at my logs and following the links back. I read like 100 different blogs daily (thank you, Google Reader) and am always looking for more. One of these days I'll do a series of blog-rolling posts so you all can see what I read regularly.

Recently I've found some very interesting referrers popping up. These aren't necessarily sites that have linked to me, but rather the domains from which people are visiting. Lots of people read from work, obviously, and if their company has its own domain then that domain shows up in my logs. Back when I was posting a lot about Comcast and MLB I was getting a bunch of hits from various reputation sites, who were (I imagine) trolling the web to read everything written about their various clients. Those seem to have dropped off, but I still get the occasional hit from them.

I also get what appears to be a regular daily visit from someone at a Publicis Groupe company in Chicago. Old friend from high school or college, or someone interested in what I'm writing, either for themselves or a client? Either way, I'd love to talk to you -- send me an email.

Likewise, I'm sure my off-hand reference to taking a Lunesta on an overseas flight explains the semi-regular visits from someone at Sepracor. For your reference, they worked great, and I'd love some more samples. Same goes for anyone who might be reading this from Merge Records, Paul Frank, Murray's Pomade, Blue Bottle Coffee, Electronic Arts, the Harrisburg Senators, Anchor Brewing, or Ebbets Field Flannels, just to name a few. Not that anyone from those companies has visited, but who knows, maybe they will now!

On the other hand, I;'m not sure what to make of the recent visit from someone at Tobyhanna Army Depot. I was just in the Poconos this weekend, on my way to visiting Storm King Art Center with some friends, but I hadn't posted about that trip yet. Weird.

Blogrolling In Our Time: Everyday Reads

Lots of things have changed since I started my first blog back in the summer of 2001. Blogs have banded together into networks; huge corporations have realized the power of blogging; there have even been rumors of people actually making a living blogging. It's nuts. One thing that hasn't changed, though, is that people spend a lot of their blogging time linking to other blogs. In fact, studies have shown that 65% of all blog entries include links to other blogs, and 98% of those links are made in the hopes that the linked-to blog will reciprocate.

Where are those studies from? That's not important. The point is that I wouldn't be a good blogger if I didn't link to the blogs that I read every day. Hell, I might not be a good blogger even if I do this, but I like to have my bases covered.

Another big change from the olden days of blogging (you know, with the steam-powered servers and hand-set type) is RSS. Thanks to syndication, you don't even need to visit sites to read them. It truly is a brave new world; why, I remember when visiting 10 or 15 sites on a 28.8 dialup account would take the better part of a weekd and a half! Now I can skim the RSS feeds of 3,000 sites in about 5 minutes. And yet I'm no more productive at work than I was before.

Anyway, my Google Reader subsciption list currently has about 80 entries on it, divided into 13 categories. The first category is the batch of blogs I read early and often. If I had any self-control or ability to properly manage my time, this would be the batch of blogs I read when I was busy, and I'd leave the rest for when I had downtime, but in fact this turns out to be just the batch I read first, before I find myselfforced to slog through every. new. post. in the list, as important work sits on my desk, uncompleted:

• BlogHarrisburg: a compilation of seven different blogs focusing on my hometown of Harrisburg PA. Not much goes on here, but when it does, it gets talked about here.
  
• Consumerist: Dispatches from the world of stuff -- where to get it, what to do when what you got wasn't what you wanted, and how to be a better, more informed shopper. Plus, lots of audio, video, and transcripts of clueless, hostile, corporate drone and customer service reps. What more could you ask for?
  
• Deadspin: Deadspin is the "The Daily Show" of Interweb sports. Apparently some large percentage of American youth gets their news from TDS, and if the same were to be true about sports news and Deadspin, America would be an even awesomer place than it already is. My God, if it weren't for Deadspin I never would have learned about Carl Monday, Ron Mexico, "You're With Me Leather," and a hundred other items of vital importance to the future of our culture.
  
• Engadget HD: Primo geekery -- every fancy gadget and high-def-related news item you could ever hope to see.
  
• Healthbolt: I just discovered this site but it has shot to the top of the chart. Health news you can use, with just the right attitude (i.e., the same as mine).
  
• Lifehacker: I like to read this site which tells me all the things I need to do to get my life organized, instead of actually, you know, getting my life organized.
  
• Uni Watch: I've been reading Paul Lukas for years. 'Beer Frame' was the only 'zine I ever bought a complete run of. I read him in Village Voice, Slate, ESPN, you name it. And I don't miss an installment of Uni Watch, the blog for sports-uniform-design obsessives and the people who love them.

What are your everyday reads?