Since I started this blog, not too long ago, I've been a rather compulsive checker of my page views, referring links, and other relevant numbers neatly displayed under the "stats" toolbar. Blogger, as an interface, integrates the stats rather well, although this is a recent phenomenon. Before the advent of Google Analytics, and, to some extent, Facebook, you would just put up a webpage and sail blindly across the seas of cyberspace without really knowing who was looking at your site unless someone actually reached out and emailed you. Now, the internet is broken down, codifying exactly who is looking after you.
I maintain a broad spectrum web presence: I have an Etsy site, a Flickr page, a Facebook account, a personal website, an Instructables setup, a Ponoko storefront, an eBay account, and this very blog. These are just my personal sites that are publicly consumable; this list doesn't take into account my private accounts at my bank, Amazon, iTunes, and so forth. Every single one of these sites spits stats back at me in some form. All of them track page views, as a basic metric of traffic. Some, like Facebook and Etsy, track likes of some sort, where someone has to actively make a decision to publicly declare their affection for something. Storefronts, like Etsy, eBay, and Ponoko, measure sales, which is a different, and perhaps weightier, form of like. Google Analytics adds many other layers of information, like referring sites, country of origin, and time spent on the site. Statistics like these extend far beyond the web. Historically, people have always been keeping track of their money -- only now a statement arrives in the mail every month detailing the flow in and out, listing the purchases, and doing the math for you. Phone bills, first landlines and now mobiles, tell you how much time you spent in conversation, which is inherently strange and immeasurable.
The questions raised by this murky swamp of data are many, and hard to answer. On some level, all of these accumulated likes and page views are a form of validation for ourselves, a way to reach out to the world and feel like someone is reaching back. However, burying your head in this stream of numbers can distract you from real life, the analog things happening out in the world while you're obsessively checking page views. The majority of the statistics don't say anything meaningful, and it gets difficult to sort out important trends from the things that merely occurred.
I maintain a broad spectrum web presence: I have an Etsy site, a Flickr page, a Facebook account, a personal website, an Instructables setup, a Ponoko storefront, an eBay account, and this very blog. These are just my personal sites that are publicly consumable; this list doesn't take into account my private accounts at my bank, Amazon, iTunes, and so forth. Every single one of these sites spits stats back at me in some form. All of them track page views, as a basic metric of traffic. Some, like Facebook and Etsy, track likes of some sort, where someone has to actively make a decision to publicly declare their affection for something. Storefronts, like Etsy, eBay, and Ponoko, measure sales, which is a different, and perhaps weightier, form of like. Google Analytics adds many other layers of information, like referring sites, country of origin, and time spent on the site. Statistics like these extend far beyond the web. Historically, people have always been keeping track of their money -- only now a statement arrives in the mail every month detailing the flow in and out, listing the purchases, and doing the math for you. Phone bills, first landlines and now mobiles, tell you how much time you spent in conversation, which is inherently strange and immeasurable.
The questions raised by this murky swamp of data are many, and hard to answer. On some level, all of these accumulated likes and page views are a form of validation for ourselves, a way to reach out to the world and feel like someone is reaching back. However, burying your head in this stream of numbers can distract you from real life, the analog things happening out in the world while you're obsessively checking page views. The majority of the statistics don't say anything meaningful, and it gets difficult to sort out important trends from the things that merely occurred.
