Speaking of self-indulgence, which no one has ever accused me of being immune to, one of the perks of this blog is that I can log onto a site that breaks down my readership according to statistics. Don’t worry, I don’t learn any names, just how many people a day, average visit length (1:22 – lots of speed-readers are also new-music buffs), and how many are on Mindspring, Earthlink, etc. Sometimes I can see when people from certain universities are reading. But the most fun page, I’ve just found, is a breakdown of my total readership by time zone. 45 percent of my readers so far, it turns out, have been from the time zone which includes the U.S. East Coast, Chile, Colombia, and Venezuela. Unfortunately, I can’t get much of a sense how many of those are from New York versus how many from Santiago or Bogota. 18 percent seem to be West Coast or western Canada, with another 14 percent from the Midwest and a distinct falling off around the Rockies. Central Europe and Western Africa account for 6 percent – I enjoy a certain vogue in Germany – and a measly 1 percent from the time zone that includes England and France. France, you’ll note, is where Pierre Boulez has a lot of influence, so that explains that. More worrisome, I seem to have no appeal to the Icelandic population whatever, have never gotten a hit from the Middle East (didn’t quite mean to put it that way), and I am making no inroads at all into that crucial Siberian time zone. But I know I have a friend reading me in Alaska, and I’m not showng any Alaskan hits either. When you click on me, John, give that return button a good thump so it registers.
COMING SOON: The latest new music from Reykjavik!
