Live Traffic Feeds: Fun in Theory …
March 21, 2010
There’s no real privacy on the internets, but it’s still rather jarring to drop by a website and see the Live Traffic Feed widget broadcasting my location to every other reader.
As an academic notion, it’s not a bad thing and most people don’t care to track who arrived when and made what comment. But it’s still stopped me from commenting more than a few times when I just can’t reconcile having my comment and location on the same page at the same time. There are quite a few blogs I like out there that have given me pause when I wanted to leave a comment.
Am I the only one who dislikes being pinpointed this way?
Back to packing, now….
I put Live Traffic Feed on my blog just for fun. I can get that info from Google Analytics anyway. Somebody would have to be paying a lot of real time attention to the blog to connect between Live Traffic Feed and you posting a comment. I guess I could go back to the history of the last 50 or so visitors and try to match the two up, if I really cared. I doesn’t capture all traffic as far as I can see. Google Analytics shows more visitors than LiveTrafficFeed.
I’m not a fan of that Live Traffic Feed either. I too, hesitate to comment when one of those things is on a blog.
Hmm…that puts things into perspective. I got it so that I could see if an annoying ex would be stalking my blog. But now that I have Google Analytics (it took me such a long time to figure out I had to sign up for it, lol) I don’t even look at my live traffic feed anymore.
I have one on my page but I never look at it for more than a second; it just looked fun so I added it. I should probably take it off; it’s not like i’m going to change anything just because most of my readers are from detroit or wherever.
I never ever look at my statistics. I honestly just don’t care. bad blogger!
It is a little weird, but it doesn’t stop me blogging. I wouldn’t put one of those on my blog, though. When it all gets too busy on the blog page, I can’t figure out how to navigate to comment, read other posts, etc. I wish people would put their categories in an obvious place. That tells me more than anything what interests them and then I can go read what interests me. Old fashioned thinking now, I guess.
Sorry meant to say ‘doesn’t stop me commenting’ … need more coffee…
It’s a little to stalkerish for me.
I didn’t even know about such a thing…
One or 2 blogs I visit have it and I tend to be a little more careful where I am when I go to those blogs and what page I leave for, as it seems to report that for everyone and their dog to see.
It also seems to report that I’m in one of a couple of locations and one of them is maybe 40 minutes away from my city. Kind of weird.
I use Sitemeter and just look at the weekly summaries mostly. I really just want to know if I’m getting more or less traffic. I only looked more deeply a couple of times to see what countries people were coming from.
Just as a general note: This wouldn’t bother me in the least were I in Los Angeles or any other major metro area. It’s just that I’m not always in a largely anonymous location and I hate having a small town’s name broadcasted because it’s a smaller world than we realize. I also know it’s not at all the bloggers who are being creepy, I just feel creeped out that any and all anonymous readers can see the locations. I know it’s not easily matched up.
That said ….
@mOOm, Sense, Shelley: Very true. Just the creeped out feeling I get is all.
@Rina: It’s not that I stop commenting entirely but I definitely pause.
@L.A.Daze: See that makes sense to me – you were having some issues.
@BouncingBack: Or maybe, as L.A.Daze uses it: anti-stalkerish.
@Jersey Mom: Quite a few bloggers have them.
@Shevy: I primarily use Sitemeter myself for an overview of the blog’s readers.
i hate it too! i feel so exposed!
it doesn’t really stop me from commenting as i rarely do.
but i found you could click to ignore your browser (it stores a cookie i think). i hope it works!