I Dream of Siri

I spend a lot of time composing these blog posts, of course, but I believe I am now ready for some new technology to come into its own. Here's how I foresee myself embracing the latest blogging software in the not-too-distant future:


"'Evening, Siri."

     "Good evening, Doc."

"What do I have on my schedule?"

     "You have a benefit tonight for the eradication of hunger, disease, and poverty."

"All three, eh? But not ignorance? Anyway, it sounds as if it's a very good cause. But I am a bit sluggish this evening. Instead, I think I'll simply stay home and work on tomorrow's blog post with you. Any ideas for it, Siri?"

     "Here is a list of today's top news stories. Would you like me to turn it into a concise but powerful blog post for you?"

"Your help would be appreciated, as always. But I was thinking we might do something a little, well, lighter for tomorrow. You know, use a humorous illustration or drawing, something like that."

     "Do you have any original content, Doc?"

"Siri, by now you should know better than to ask me that. Let's just find something amusing on eBay. Then you can fluff it up a bit with some choice writing."

     "Doc, I have 26,451 humorous drawings on eBay."

"Any really funny ones?"

     "OK, I have a very funny one. There's this man and a woman and a cat."

"Great! Now compose something insightful or clever and we're done."

     "Very good, Doc. I'll post it tomorrow on the blog."

"Not too wordy now."

     "Of course not."

"Just a touch of sarcasm would be all right."

     "As you wish."

"Good. Phew! That was a lot of work, Siri. Now, have you come up with anything for the Cartoon Caption Contest this week?"

     "I'm still working on that one, Doc."

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Blog Post No. 800: Think Locally, Blog Globally

Welcome to my 800th blog post! I couldn't have asked for a nicer visitor.

Google provides many nifty statistical tools to its bloggers, and I admit to being fascinated by some of them. While I don't care at all which browser people are using to read this blog, I have been fascinated all year by how my humble blog attracts readers around the world. In February I noted that the blog was starting to accumulate page views in China, which was a totally new and unanticipated phenomenon. I commented on this several times, and I avidly follow China's progress here every day.

China is currently sixth among all nations in monthly readership, but it has not yet made it into the top ten list for all-time page views. If current trends continue, that should happen some time late this year and Brazil, I'm afraid, will be leaving this list.

Attempted Bloggery All-Time Pageviews by Countries, July 4, 2013

Please allow me to make a few additional observations. This list is top-heavy, with readership in the U.S. being approximately 100 times readership in Brazil. As a result, towards the bottom of the list, the results can easily be skewed by one or two dedicated readers in each country. The statistics can also be skewed by referer spam.

Of the ten countries on this list, six are Epcot nations. Five Epcot nations are not on the list: Norway, Japan, China, Morocco, and Mexico. The strong showing of Russia makes it unlikely that this list can ever be an all-Epcot list. Why I think this is important is not clear even to me.

Nations of Africa and the Middle East are not well-represented among the blog's readers. A similar fate may await South America if Brazil is pushed off the list by China. The entire Southern hemisphere would then be underrepresented, although Australia is English-speaking and may well remain strong. Overall readership in non-English-speaking countries is probably facilitated by Google Translator and other similar translation programs.

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Attempted Bloggery: Two Years and Counting

It was two years ago today that I unleashed my spanking new blog on an unsuspecting world. Beforehand, I had produced no trial posts and I had no master plan. I just began doing it and I suppose that was a good enough approach for me. The very earliest posts here are perhaps a little bit clunkier than what I'm creating now, but the overall taste and temperament of the blog haven't changed very much because my taste and temperament haven't changed very much. In fact, I still like the same stuff I liked in the 1970's.

Over these two years I have produced, on average, slightly more than one post per day, for a running total of 785. Although I have only a scant 20 public followers, there have been over 225,000 page views since inception, and that number is currently growing by about 10,000 a month. For a blog that's anything but universal in its appeal, that seems to me to be a pretty reasonable number. Of course, I'd always be pleased to have more readers. In fact, most nights I go to bed wondering whether tomorrow will be the day this blog finally goes viral.

Even without that, I'm having a pretty good time here. Do you know what I love about blogging? I love not having an editor! Anyone who has read, for example, my New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest entries has to be aware that I don't have proper supervision. I'm the only boss here. There is no imperious blog committee urging me to push things in a new and more popular direction. With obscurity comes freedom.

My blog, then, reflects my freedom to write pretty much whatever I want. One thing that I have been astonished by is the reaction of the Chinese people, who as far as I can tell have no pressing reason whatsoever to visit this blog. Nevertheless, they have been coming in droves--well, very small droves--and despite an authoritarian government placing harsh restrictions on internet access, many have exercised a new-found freedom to bypass central censorship by coming here, of all places. Over the past month, China very briefly placed sixth here among page views by country before lapsing back to seventh place behind Canada. I find that remarkably refreshing and encouraging even though I don't fully understand it.

So what does the future hold? I can't really say. After all, I didn't know I'd be entering The New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest until I actually tried it back in April and decided to go public with my unlikely efforts. It really wasn't planned.

What I do anticipate is relocating Blog Central to a suburban refuge, but I don't yet have a clue in what fashion this will alter the content of my blogging. I certainly don't expect to compose any posts with useful tips on outdoor grilling, but who knows? We shall see together, won't we?

Note:  You can read my very first blog post here. See how it all got started.

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