Wednesday 24 October 2007

Ooh the pressure

The lovely Mark and Nicki of Mostly Books have listed me as one of their 'Abingdon blogs' on the blogroll of their own, re-vamped blog. Though flattering to be in the company of domesticali et al, it is slightly worrying for 2 reasons: one, I know a lot of the book trade, various literati, the famous Scott Pack etc etc read the Mostly Books blog, and hence may, in a moment of whimsy, click through to this one. Part of me wonders what they may think and panics slightly; whereas the other part knows deep down that these are all busy important people and have better things to do with their day than read random blogs (or do they...?). Two, I don't really blog about Abingdon per se, though obviously I do live here and a lot of the things we do in our leisure time are done around and about the town. The Abingdon Blogger himself does take loads of photos though, and posts some occasional nuggets of interest that enlighten me about what The People Who Run Things are doing with our town, so I don't feel as much pressure here to blog about what it's like to live in Abingdon.

Also, I'm not sure how many people actually look at the webspace of blogs nowadays (if that's the right terminology) but instead subscribe to a feed. I mean, I've had over 100 visitors to this one since I stuck a site counter up a while ago, and that's lovely to see. I think I know who a few of them are, and to those of you who come along just for the hell of it and don't know me from Adam, I'm really pleased and I hope you don't think it was a waste of your time. However, all the blogs I read regularly are consumed via Bloglines feeds within that interface, and not by me visiting the site itself (and becoming a unique visitor). It means I can get all my reading over and done with blog by blog and also - crucially for an organisation freak - sort the feeds into friends, work-related, books, music etc. themilkman has recently posted about information overload and the difficulty of keeping up with blogs - I don't find this so much of a problem, except with those who regularly post huge long essays which I only have time to read at weekends (sorry dovegreyreader and Stephen Fry). Only 2 people (including me, ha) have subscribed to my blog on Bloglines though, so I'm guessing not many people are reading me as a feed. In which case to those 179 people who have come and visited so far, thank you very much indeed.

3 comments:

Ali said...

It's me - the other subscriber! I'm so wedded to my Bloglines it isn't true. I had much the same reaction to being up there on the MB site - sort of pleasure and horror in equal amounts. Silly really, given that a blog is, by definition, open to all. And no MB click throughs have turned up on my blog yet...

But you'd be amazed at the famous folks who are googling themselves or find you via discussions elsewhwere. But I have to admit, I don't think I've gained any loyal readers that way!

thiswasme said...

Woo for you! Good work. Personally I've got all the blogs & news sites I use trundling through the RSS reader in my Google Toolbar, so although it's not technically 'subscribing', I do tend to read most things. I've also got Google Analytics on my page, which is ace - wholeheartedly recomend it. Oh, and one more thing, nice to see you not using the word 'blogosphere', which tends to bring me out in hives.

Anonymous said...

Hello Kathryn - no, it's not a waste of my my time visiting your blog at all - really enjoyed reading what you've written and think it looks great too. I've also just susbcribed to your feed - so that makes three!

Blogging. Hmm... Can't say I'm in any way inclined to publish a blog - you know how disorganised I can be - difficult enough for me to get it together enough to actually DO anything, never mind WRITING about it as well. It's an odd one for me - takes a great deal of confidence (or self-absorbtion?!?) to actually put your thoughts and ramblings out into the public domain - and some blogs I read are a little, well, narrow and inward looking. But yours is really interesting - honestly! - hence my subscription!

Hope you're well, Kathryn, and the next time you're in Hammersmith...? xxx