Enough About Me - Who Are YOU People? - August 15, 2008

Running a blog and spilling my guts out on the internet has been a great venting tool for me. Besides catharsis, it's also become an easy way to keep family, friends, and colleagues up to date on the situation - though there are still many who don't or won't read the blog. In fact only about 30% of the people on my list of folks to keep updated read this blog on a regular basis. Not complaining - just surprised. And now it seems to be coming into its own as a tool to help to others out there in cyberspace. This domain (blogspot.com) is fully owned by Google, so my blog is integrated with the Google search engine. It's taken a while, but now if you Google "bladder cancer" with a few other words that appear here frequently, you will get a link near the top of the list for this site! And if you click on that link, it's my hope that you find something useful, interesting, or entertaining here. I have had quite a few strangers hitting the blog of late from Google searches. One fellow from Canada typed in "male bladder cancer treatment of bcg" last night and spent over half an hour on the blog, looking at over 30 different pages. He sent me a follow-up question, too. More on that in a later post. Another person typed in "bcg bladder treatments 6 weeks pain" and spent no time at all on the site, which seems odd because I have a lot of stuff on that topic. Another one Googled "my story with t1 bladder cancer" just like I have, but that person didn't stay long either. Whatever! I must say my favorite Google hit so far was yesterday evening from a guy in Michigan who searched on "turbt drinking beer." That WOULD be a guy, right? Anyhow beer is a perfectly fine way to hydrate and take the edge off (within reason) if you are not taking any drugs that would be affected. I'd recommend American lite beer, which is nearly pure water anyway! He spent 23 minutes on the site and looked at 16 pages, so I hope he reached the right conclusion!

How do I know so much about all of you? First of all, I don't know a lot about any individual, but I can see what you Googled, how long you stayed, how many page views, and where your Internet provider is based - which may not at all be where YOU are located. For instance my friend TK lives in Albuquerque, but her ISP is based in Denver. So the internet is not revealing any detailed personal or useful information about you all. But you do make an interesting collection of readers. You can see who is looking into the blog also. Just hit the Sitemeter button located near the bottom of the left-hand column, then hit the "By Details" link under RECENT VISITORS section of the left column, then click on any line number displayed (not the ISP name) to get details for any visitor and snoop away! I shall continue to post here, and friends, info-seekers, and other voyeurs are welcome to read all about it. Welcome all!

1 comment:

Kathie Brown said...

Wow Steve, good for you! I'm glad you not only have a place to vent but your rantings, ravings and well researched and well written articles are helping others! Bravo! I haven't been here in awhile because I have been busy trying to keep up with my own blog after vacation. I'm doing a little catching up with all my friends now. You will probably see me here more than Gus. He is a bit squemish you know. I hope you are doing well. I pray they don't have to do the radical surgery on you! My love and prayers to you and Katherine. I'll have to check out that site meter. I don't have one of those. I didn't know it would tell you so much!