Surprising Statistics

Recently I noticed a rather staggering number when scanning through my social media accounts. It turns out that, somehow, I have had over one million profile views on Google+. That being said, of the social media sites that I use on a regular basis I am the least familiar with Google+ so I had to do some digging to figure out how that number is calculated. This led me to a post by Mark Traphagen on the Stone Temple Consulting website which provided some useful bullet points:

• Posts are counted for any view of them in any Google+ stream. A viewer does not have to click on or otherwise engage with a post for it to count as a view. So even if the viewer scrolls by the post in her stream, a view is counted. Basically, the post just has to have been seen on someone’s screen. Interesting tidbits: 
• All shares of a post that are seen by others count as views, both for the sharer and for the original poster.
• Posts that become recommended content in others’ streams because someone +1’ed them can count as views for the original poster.
• Embedded Google + posts also can increment this view count. That’s because a post embedded in a site page using the post’s embed code displays in an iframe, which means it is actually being viewed on the plus.google.com server.
• Photos/images (UPDATED!) must be “opened” only need to go by in someone’s stream (or be seen on Blogger, Picasa, or Chromecast) to count for a view.
• Profiles & Pages only count as a view when someone opens them in their own tab or window.

Even with this “explanation” it is still a surprising figure to me as I am one that uses social media but doesn’t really leverage it to the best of my ability. When you factor in that I only have just over 160 Google+ followers, 3,536 LinkedIn followers, 1,000 Twitter followers, and exactly zero people following my blog through Blogger, it still doesn’t add up. I could dig a little more and try to find a proper accounting of this figure but, in the end, this isn’t really important.

The numbers that I am focused on are the daily goals that I have set for myself by writing a blog a day, every day, with a minimum word count of 400. That is what I focus on with everything else being a pleasant surprise. It is with this in mind that I find the nearly 90,000 blog views much more gratifying than the magical one million figure under my Google+ profile picture. The growth of the blog has been steady over the years and knowing that I have been able to keep the promise I made to myself (and later my readers) is what keeps me writing every single day.

Sunday Search: Translation Please!

While conducting searches on different family members there is a variety of information that comes up usually requiring a lot of sorting, deciphering of handwriting, and frustration when the document that really piques my interest is in another language. More often than not I am at least able to figure things out not because I am fluent in multiple languages (I haven’t even mastered one) but because I know the basic format of what I am looking at. This hasn’t always been the case but after you have been doing the same kind of research for a while you generally know what information goes where largely based on where you find the name you are looking for in the document.

Early on in my research, these were pure moments of frustration that usually had me clicking on the ignore button before giving the document half of a chance to reveal itself. Now I find myself revisiting the branches on my tree and sorting through those forgotten hints so that I can again sort through them to see if anything is relevant to my family tree. I guess you could say that this is the curse of the world explorer membership on Ancestry.com.

However, this is only on instance where the language barrier can prove difficult or just flat out frustrating. While Google translate and similar programs are wonderful tools they are generally only reliable when it is strait text on a website. Add in the calligraphy element as well as the fact that most of these documents are in PDF or some other unsearchable file format and there is little that Google can do to assist. And I actually ran into this issue when researching my great grandfathers World War One unit.

When looking for information on the Motor Transportation Corps on the internet there is actually a limited amount of information that can be found as it pertains to the WWI incarnation of those units. When digging even further and specifying Unit 301, there is even less information available. After exhausting the limited resources that populated the first few search pages, I came across a PDF document of an account from one of the locals in France… you guessed it, the document is in French. Unfortunately, I understand very little of this language anymore having forgotten nearly all that I was taught in school and Google translate refused to assist in this matter.

Thankfully it is a typed account and a common language. Older documents found in dusty books are proving to be much more difficult. However, many are in the formats of which I am familiar and have provided me with a wealth of knowledge that has been added to my ever expanding genealogical database. But, and I will leave you with this thought, it would be nice to have the ability to instantly translate the material and I encourage researchers to know at least one other language and have a network of researchers who know a variety of other languages as well. You never know when your knowledge or theirs will benefit your research.

Does It Make Sense?

In addition to the changes mentioned previously regarding the annual encore of this blog I decided to give something else a try… AdSense. While I have enjoyed an ad free environment during this past year it was time to face the reality that this simple inclusion doesn’t cost me a thing and doesn’t interfere with me posting content on a daily basis. Of course some people may be annoyed but this is the state of the internet and everything else on my blog is free.

We are in an age when browsing websites is quickly becoming passé. It seems as though every other site has a pay portal keeping me from taking a look at the content and reading what people have to say about different subjects. And while the other pages are littered with ads, some to the point of overkill, at least the content is still free and I can think about what people are writing rather than whether or not their work is worth reading before I have a chance to read it. If you couldn’t guess, I don’t do pay portals.

So, this is my way of finding a bit of a happy medium. There will be ads posted in a couple of spots on the blog. It will be minimally invasive and, for the most part, lost in a torrential river of free content. Keep in mind, this is something completely new to me so if the ads seem a bit odd in the beginning it is because I am still trying to figure out the settings. There are different ways to shape the ad content and with the little time that I have, I am unable to explore all the tools at my disposal to hone the content. Of course, you could also see the ads as an accompaniment to the randomness of my posts.

Over time, I hope to find the right mix to compliment the content I post. Maybe it might add value at that point and provide you easy access to various companies, products, and websites. Who knows but that is the goal. At the very least I had to make you aware of this possible change… Of course, all of this may be moot if the blog doesn’t pass through the review process. While I have looked at some of the no no’s in the user policy and I don’t think I am in violation of any of them, you never know and maybe you will continue to read this blog free of ads.

Go Google Yourself!

I use Google on a daily basis for numerous reasons but mostly as a means to find photos for this blog, tracking mentions of various companies, and finding news about different subjects. It is a great tool that makes the daily tasks a lot easier than it used to be. I’m sure I am not the only one who remembers using a card catalogue and flipping through pages and pages of useless information. Well, maybe not completely useless as it has done wonders for my random knowledge over the years. In fact, much of my recent genealogy work has more closely resembled this method rather than the modern instantaneous gratification that we have all become accustom to.

Every once in a while I take advantage of this modern convenience and see what happens to be floating around out there that is tied to my name. It is quite the interesting exercise and, to a certain extent, a little disconcerting. Have you ever done a Google search of your own name?

It’s a given that all your social media accounts play a prominent role in the search results but there is also, at least for me, a lot of other information that surfaces. From mentions in articles, old corporate blog posts, press releases, reading announcements to, if it so applies, any piece of information that is part of the public record including your address, phone number, and pictures of your friends and family. If you are a writer, you can also find some class assignments based on your work (this was both surprising and entertaining).

Such is the time in which we live. Whether you like it or not, your name is out there for everyone to see. While I am a pretty open and outgoing person, some others don’t have the same perspective. This is why I am constantly conscious of what gets posted, what pictures are taken, and the people and organizations with which I associate. Everything is out there for anyone to find and you don’t want that random picture to surface that was taken immediately prior to you blacking out.

It will be interesting how subsequent generations react to such openness and whether or not the barriers remain between personal actions and professional consequences when the moments of youth live on in perpetuity on the internet. For me, I remain cognizant of what is posted and what is said. I do my best to minimize the censoring of my opinions and perspectives in an effort to remain completely transparent and honest with those who may come across these words and I enjoy the fact that I am able to record my own life and maintain an ongoing record for future generations. Good or bad, this is who I am and this is one of the main things that will show up in a Google search.