After a too-long absence…Terry Storch is back in the blogosphere. You can check out his new blog right here. If you don’t know the name, for lots of us Terry is one of the first bloggers we were inspired by. And it is great that he’s back!
Have you checked out Clicky yet? I use several different tools to keep track of what’s happening at StrategyCentral. FeedBurner is a daily check. MyBlogLog is a tool that I’ve been using for about a year to see where all of you come from, what you read and where you go. About a month ago I tripped across a new tool called Clicky. I have to say, it adds some interesting elements. Not yet sure if I’m going to subscribe to it, but today I saw a new feature that is very interesting. When I click on the “visitors” tab I can actually see where all of you are logging on from! Click here to see where visitors to StrategyCentral are in the world. Now you have to admit that is totally cool! Kind of makes me want to ask, “How’s the weather over there!” There’s even someone on from Indonesia! Welcome to StrategyCentral!
What are you using on your own blog to measure what’s happening? Like anything else, you can just go along and hope for the best…or you can develop your strategy, measure what happens, and then adjust your strategy in order to better arrive at your preferred future. From the standpoint of your blog, there are some tools that allow measurement, which can serve as a way to evaluate what is happening in order to adjust strategy.
Early on I found out about Feedburner. Great tool. Free. Originally it was simply a feedburning service, just like the name. What does that mean? Feedburner simply publicized your content and made it easy for people to subscribe. Additionally, they optimized distribution so that your content was properly formatted for all of the
major directories and coud be consumed by subscribers wherever they were.
A few months ago Feedburner added some really interesting analytical tools that have helped even further. But mostly what Feedburner gives is a look at the daily numbers. When I check it out in the a.m. I can see how things went yesterday and I can see where things are trending.
About 6 months ago I added MyBlogLog to my analytic arsenal. There is a free version, but for $25 a year you get a more robust service that reports traffic as it’s happening. I use it to see where my readers come from and what links they click on to leave my site. In addition, MyBlogLog is also a kind of social networking site. You can build a community there.
Last week I found out about Clicky. Another really cool analytical tool. And it is free at the moment. It allows a look at who comes to my site from another angle. Like MyBlogLog, Clicky shows intra-day activity. Different…it shows how long visitors stay.
I heard about Clicky over at Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion. It’s been a while since I added MyBlogLog, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I heard about it from Steve Rubel
I know most of you come in through a feedreader like Bloglines. But if you have seen my new banner…I’m really happy with the way it looks! Thanks to my friend Nader Wahabi adding Strategy Central to a great istockphoto.com image!
Have you added any new blogs to your reading lately? I tripped across a really interesting one today that I’ve just got to tell you to check out. Conversation Agent is a great find! Written by Valeria Maltoni, new on the Fast Company team of expert bloggers, this will be a good one to add to your Bloglines list of feeds! Check it out! I think you’ll like it too!
And thanks to Logic + Emotion for the recommendation!
I don’t know if you know Lifehacker or not…but it’s a blog I watch daily. There’s always an interesting array of cool ideas, like this one about how to wrap a headphone cord. If you’re like me, trying to untangle your iPod headphones while driving…this video will serve you! Check it out!
If you like StrategyCentral and you’d like to follow the conversation, there are two easy ways to do it. AND IT’S FREE!
First, if you’d like to receive an email whenever there’s a new post, just type in your email below and hit enter. Couldn’t be simpler.
Or, if you use a blog-reader (I use Bloglines) you can just click the orange button below to sign up!
Either way, you’ll always know when we’ve got something new here!
Great post over at Tony Morgan’s blog today…49 Simple Strategies for Better Blogging. Love it. If you go over there be sure to pile on with a comment about a pink shirt. He loves it.
One year ago today I posted for the first time here at StrategyCentral. It’s amazing how fast the year has passed. Here are the posts for June 2005. I started things up over at Xanga. It’s foggy one year later but I remember that Alex McManus’s blog on Xanga was one of the first I was checking out. The missing in action Terry Storch was the other. And Tom Peters was the third. Over the year I’ve connected with lots of great people and ideas around the blogosphere.
Thanks to everyone who’s joined the conversation!
What blogs do you check everyday? Are there certain stops that you know you’re going to make? Or is it random?
Right now I’ve got 63 blogs that I check on Bloglines (it makes it really easy when they’re all listed at one location). The number changes. As I discover a new one, it’s easy to add them. If after a while I realize that I’m really not interested in one they’re easy to delete.
And for sure there are certain spots that I check every day. I’ve listed them in the sidebar as Blogs Read Daily. In fact, I added a new favorite. Steve Farber is a new writer to me. Haven’t started it yet, but his book The Radical Leap : A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership is next up on the stack. And his blog is a good collection of related ideas.
How about Strategy Central? Are you a random reader or are you a regular? Either way, take a second and sign up!
Or, enter your email address and I’ll let you know when there’s a new post
Either way, it’ll make it easier to come back and join the conversation.
