Dunbar's Number

Dianne and I have both mentioned our use of the MyBlogLog site recently. The site has some nice tracking tools, but also a social networking aspect. You have the option of enrolling in communities that are associated with a particular blog. There isn't any commitment per se associated with enrollment. It does serve a few purposes: it conveys interest to the blog writer (it's nice to know people are reading); it allows networking by giving the option to establish a fan/friend/admirer relationship with the blog writer; helps you find other MyBlogLog members with similar interests in the blogs you're reading regularly; and the site organizes your communities so it's easy to surf blogs of interest (perhaps not as efficient as a news aggregator).

It's the networking piece that is intriguing -- especially after reading this entry about the monkeysphere on the How to Split an Atom (HTSAA) blog. I wasn't aware of that term or the concept of Dunbar's number. There is a good Wikipedia article about Dunbar's number. There is a funny read about the Monkeysphere here. In short, Dunbar's theory is that there are a limited number of relationships that humans can maintain at one time. A rough estimate of the group size is 150. It seems like a reasonable idea and something that would have work/office implications. The interesting idea brought out in the HTSAA blog entry is how does the Dunbar idea apply to the blogosphere or social networking sites. When you're at a social networking site, how many 'relationships' can you maintain? Or how many can you maintain on top of your other family, friends, and coworker relationships? What implications does that have for social networking sites? All very interesting questions.

I haven't jumped on the Myspace bandwagon. I guess I'm not in the right demographic for Myspace. Most of the sites I've seen there have a 'friends' list and on many blogs the number of friends well exceeds Dunbar's number. Are these folks able to maintain relationships with all these MySpace friends? I somehow doubt it. However, perhaps blog communications are a different level of 'social grooming' that lets people support a larger monkeysphere.

Personally, my ability to maintain a social network is pretty small. I don't know if I could even keep up with 150 people. If Dunbar's concept is true, my neocortex must the size of a pea.

Google, Ask, and Blogger Search Results

Dianne had a nice post about blog tracking and the use of MyBlogLog. I get less traffic than she does, but it's still interesting to see where people are coming from. A couple reminded me of posts made long ago that brought back some memories. I was actually surprised to see that people doing a search would actually click on a search result that takes them here. Obviously not very discriminating with their searching. Here are recent searches (Google, Ask, and Blogger) that led people here.

• hogey carmichael biography who was

Took them here. Probably didn't stay long with my Hogey comments. I did see Lauren Bacall on the Oscars and she looked really good.

• cincinnati rollergirls
• blu bayou cincinnati and "blu bayou" cincinnati
• blu bayou roller derby
• sadistic sadie
• 739.27 t213e

A lot of traffic associated with the Rollergirls. The last one took them here. I wonder if they were looking for The Librarian or actually looking for the book.

• tracking blog traffic

• creative cubicles

Took them here.

• clocks that display time floating in air

Took them here.

• wrist fracture physical therapy

Took them here or maybe here. They probably would have found Dianne's post funny. By the way, my shoulder continues to improve and my range of motion, although not the same as the right side, is fairly close. I feel for anyone dealing with a frozen shoulder.

• wedding lion dance august 20, 2006

Took them here.

• earl world

Someone was actually searching for this blog?

And just today I had a hit on this search:

• where in Hawaii can you find a fountain pen by earl?
  

It took them here because of this post that has the phrase "...see if you can find us..." and this post that mentions "...a fountain of feet...". They must have thought Google failed them on that search.

Benefits of Blog Tracking

I don't get much traffic here...not many folks reading my musings. Nevertheless, when I was visiting Patrick Mayfield's blog and reading one of his posts about tracking blog traffic, I was intrigued at what was available. I signed up for Technorati and also MyBlogLog just for smiles. As expected, I'm not getting a lot of traffic.

What is interesting is that MyBlogLog gives you a pro account for 3 days that reverts to a free account later. The pro account gives instant updates on where people come from when going into your site and what they click on while there. When I looked at my stats this evening, I noticed I had someone coming to my blog from Sk8Crime's blog (one of the Rollergirls I mentioned in an earlier post). I thought that was strange until I went to her blog this evening and saw this post that links to my site. It's a good post--pretty clever choice of music! She has a good livejournal site.

We already bought our tickets for SRS II, so I guess I'll have to go incognito. My name is Earl.