I’ve never had the pleasure of counting myself among the Alexa elite (as a matter of fact, this blog holds a humble 8763rd place – among sites Norwegians visit). Never paid much attention to search engine optimisation, commenting wildly on other bloggers’ posts for requital [...]]]>

I’ve never had the pleasure of counting myself among the Alexa elite (as a matter of fact, this blog holds a humble 8763rd place – among sites Norwegians visit). Never paid much attention to search engine optimisation, commenting wildly on other bloggers’ posts for requital traffic, unless I should, for other reasons, but I do appreciate frequent visitors and love the input you provide, unless you’re up to no good, that is.

In short, my insignificances are indeed highly insignificant, in the big picture that is the blogosphere, but I cherish my readers, who, more often than not, provide additional facts to my posts – or correct them, even, which is even better. There’s no better way to expand your horizon than to have your own misconceptions rectified, no matter how embarrassing at the time. Which is why I’m pleased to pride myself with a highly competent parish, whose own blogs I admire immensely.

Even though my traffic figures have been and remain modest, I’ve discovered that there’s really nothing to boost traffic, if that’s what you’re after – provided you have the time, unfortunately a very sparse commodity, to actually maintain the blog regularly.

Seeing as I prefer quality over quantity, I broke my stride the other week somehow,  on deciding to experiment with a somewhat more popular – some would say common – approach, delving into the realms of popular culture. Which, believe you me, is a lot easier in Norwegian, as we Norwegians do not much care for high brow phenomena, save for the odd occasion when, for one reason or the other, we’re flaunting our faux intellectualism. In reality we’re every bit as commercially inclined as the outrageous Americans. The decision was made: I was determined to attract the salt of the earth by blogging a few posts of monumental interest to the average news reader (useful information: Hereabouts the term “news” refers to entertainment, celebrities and the “heinous Muslim immigrants”).

My blog boasts a meagre average of some 500 visits a day (not unique), but on 20 April  I published a post on the Pirate Bay verdict (in Norwegian), which was all over the place, linking liberally to every Twingly-enabled news outlet, thereby securing a minor boost in reciprocal traffic, to 2252 visits and 10,475 page views that day, an exercise I repeated on several occasions, in relation to other popular subjects, such as Norway’s Eurovision Song Contest contender, who accidentally won the whole thing (did I remember to inform you that Norwegian news are all entertainment, celebrities et cetera?).

As you will see from this table, activity was extremely low during the year’s two initial months, until a gradual increase became evident as of March:

The May figures aren’t complete at the moment, but with all probability end at approximately 10,000 unique visitors. Still not impressive, but I’m more than happy. A monthly average from just below 1000 unique monthly visitors to say 11,000, wouldn’t be possible for a fairly new blog, such as this (launched in the end of last September, with moderate activity), if it hadn’t been for the Twingly trackbacks and Google Friend Connect. Here’s an interesting piece of information, see:

Of the above shown figures, some 48,5 percent are referred from my very limited participation in the Google Friend Connect network – among those actually referred from elsewhere, that is. I’ve joined a very moderate number of blogs, as follower, if you will. All blogs that I intend to follow, mind you (joining those you don’t care much to follow, simply in order to attract reciprocal traffic, would be a little overzealous, in my opinion).

In other words, if increasing traffic figures is a goal in itself, I really ought to join more sites – via Google Friend Connect. As the screendump to the left (or the real deal in the lower end of my sidebar) shows, I haven’t got more than 13 followers to show for myself, me included. Followers who undoubtedly have come to much of the same conclusion; that Google Friend Connect indeed is a proverbial lifesaver, in terms of traffic figures.

In fact, I’m amazed that very few blogs seem to have discovered. If you don’t have one, Go get. If you’d like to assist fellow bloggers in their attempts at improving visits, that is. If you’re all about attracting traffic to yourself: joining blogs who have it is an alternative, I suppose.

The Kiwi software development company Dinther Product Design launched the first version of its free ship simulation, Ships, the other day, which leverages on the browser-based Google Earth plugin as the primary graphics engine, according to the Google Earth Blog.

First of all, let me point [...]]]>

The Kiwi software development company Dinther Product Design launched the first version of its free ship simulation, Ships, the other day, which leverages on the browser-based Google Earth plugin as the primary graphics engine, according to the Google Earth Blog.

First of all, let me point out that I was never much of a gamer, save for a brief Amiga period some 20 years ago, but this one actually had me impressed. Not so much by the game’s features and functionality perhaps as by its availability, as a free of charge offer based on third party R&D and development, such as Google’s ever-improving Google Earth.

If you’ve used Google Earth before, you already know some of the drill. Type in any location in the world (or click on it on the map), and you’re there. Personally I couldn’t resist ordering a huge container vessel to the Oslo harbour, as seen in this screendump:

A container vessel next to Oslo's Aker Brygge.

As you will see from the above screendumps, Ships is nowhere near the realistic experience you get from simulation programmes applied in commercial training, but it is great fun, offering different angles and vantage points, a selection of vessel classes, close to realistic navigation features (but no cigar) and, above all, hours of fun, if you’re so inclined.

I suppose it’s pretty obvious by now that I have no future as a gaming critic, but I thought you might be interested. Please check it out (requires that you download the Google Earth plugin). Before you do, you may find this brief walk-through interesting, though:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AQXvHSf3yQ

Top photo: Screendump from Ships, showing the “Queen Mary 2″ in Rotterdam.

There can be no doubt. After seeing a brief walk-through of Google’s Android platform, I know, with something very close to a 100 percent certainty, that my next mobile is very likely to be an Android. German (US-based) T-Mobile launched their HTC-manufactured G1 yesterday, sporting Google’s brand new, Linux-based Android platform, [...]]]>

There can be no doubt. After seeing a brief walk-through of Google’s Android platform, I know, with something very close to a 100 percent certainty, that my next mobile is very likely to be an Android. German (US-based) T-Mobile launched their HTC-manufactured G1 yesterday, sporting Google’s brand new, Linux-based Android platform, and I have to tell You: For my purposes this beats the crap out of Apple’s latest iPhone. An absolute must-have if you’re depending on net-based applications in your everyday life, which I do. But I can tell you this, too: I’m in no hurry, since 1) Android-enabled mobiles won’t be available on the Norwegian market until sometime early next year (at the earliest), and 2) I’m not in the habit of buying goodies the minute they’re introduced to same market.

Desirable products are introduced to consumers on a near daily basis, and truth be told, I’m quite happy with my now soon one year old mobile. There are numerous reasons why you shouldn’t frequently renew your gadget armoury. I, for one, simply cannot afford to, and if I did, I’d think twice before polluting our environment with more electronic waste than absolutely necessary.

Of course, you’ll have to weigh the impact on your work-effienecy against all that, and in my case this constitutes a huge improvement, so we’ll just see. Affordable, too, at about USD 179 (in America, of course). As for the improved productivity… What can I say, that hasn’t already been said:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7qbPa1O8Ys

So yes, I think I’m going for an Android mobile, unless something better comes along. But that’s it, isn’t it: Something always does.