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I wrote two blog entries today! My recommendations: for geekery, see the other entry; for gossip, read current one; for lurkers and stalkers, read both.

I’ve been tagged by tagged by Tosha and Lissy to do this random facts meme. It’s a lot less evil than the vices meme Teddy tagged me for, the last time.

Here’s how to play:

Once you’ve been tagged you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random facts, habits, or goals about yourself — at the end choose 5 people to be tagged. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying “You’re It!” and to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you.

10 Random Facts About Ivy

• I am afraid of fish: They are freaking scary. Every time I see them at the market, they look like they are still alive and if I were to chop off something, they’ll wake up to bite me with those horribly sharp teeth.
• I am afraid of dentists: Owners of the blogs I frequent will know that I never ever comment on posts where they write about a trip to the dentist. And if I do comment, it’s to apologize for not reading it. My fear goes back to my first grade. I absolutely abhor the school dentist. She’s mean and cranky and evil. And she pokes around my mouth with tools, without ever thinking about my pain. Argh, just the word ‘dentist’ gives me the goosebumps.
• I am 157cm or 5′2″ short.: Because of my outgoing and dominant personality, most people who’ve met me in person perceive me to be taller than I actually am. Considering that I played 10 years of basketball, 157cm is just…pathetic. But thanks to all those who perceive my height to be taller than 160cm. You all make me feel better about myself. LOL!
• I am a tomboy.: With the amount of makeup and skirts I wear, most people perceive me to be a girly-girl. WRONG! I was a tomboy in my teenaged years, and I still carry a lot of masculine personality traits. I also check out girls when I go out; not because I’m interested in them, but just out of habit, since I spent most of my life hanging out with boys.
• I speak with an American accent: Yes, I was born and raised in Asia. But I also went to a school taught by British teachers from 2nd grade and continued in schools taught by American teachers since 8th grade. Most of my classmates were American too. So I inadvertently speak like them. I can speak with a Singapore and Canadian accent as well. But when I’m angry, I will revert back to my American accent - that’s how I know that it’s my original accent.
• I watched 3,000 episodes of anime in the last two years: I kid you not. Check out my complete anime list at myanimelist.com. So, all you anime fans and anime curious, you know who’s the definitive source for anime recommendations now. As an unintended side-effect, I can now understand conversational Japanese without trying.
• However, I am not an otaku オタク.: I don’t own any anime memorabilia, I don’t play games adapted from anime and I don’t think I will ever engage in cosplaying. Although… I admit that I like checking out cosplayers. I have also never been an anime festival nor do I intend to. I also have a life aside from watching anime. LOL!
• My favorite color is turquoise…which explains why my last two layouts had different variations of turquoise on them.
• I have a broken ankle and a broken arm: Long story short, the broken ankle was caused in a street basketball incident and the broken arm was caused by a sailing certification incident.
• I can’t draw on pencil and paper… even if my life depended on it. I call myself a design enthusiast and I even have a deviantart account to show off all my vexels. I also drew the freaking flower in this layout, but the fact is, I can’t draw with pencil on paper - even my stick figures look horrible.

And that brings my long-list of random facts to a close. I will bring upon the horrible fate of internet meme-ing to the following people:

• Teddy - for my sweet revenge
• Tammy - to encourage more frequent blog posts
• Terin Selena - for kindly writing an entry about my entry
• Melle - for making a cute new layout for her blog
• Katy - because she’s hot

To the tagged people, let me know if you don’t do tags, I’ll add someone else in your place. To everyone else…

What are some random facts about you? Do we share any similarities?

30 Comments

Question of the Month: How do you measure your site’s success? (i.e. doing what you want it to do)

Having owned a site from the world of Geocities back in 1996, and many frequent hiatuses, the world of Web 2.0 is, for the most part, still quite alien to me. I don’t fully understand the sleuth of social bookmarking sites or the function of Google pageranks (other than the fact that it drives traffic). I have slowly transformed my site to work according to certain Web 2.0 standards such as code validation, ensuring that they are 508 compliant - a standard to assure those with disabilities, particularly the blind, can access my site like everybody else.

Regardless of Web 2.0 standards, I measure Nanyate’s success by delving deep into my Statcounter. While most people only look at their unique visitor count, pageviews, and referrals, I find that miscellaneous statistical information can provide key information for blogger-designers like me (and, I presume, most of you too!). For example:

• Visitor Length - Reflection of your content and design quality

  For me, this is by far the most important number because how long your visitors stay on your site reflects on the quality of your blog content and to a lesser extent, how aesthetically and functionally pleasing your site is. By aesthetics, I don’t mean designing the site with the caliber of NDesign Studio, but just one that I can view without getting a migraine from flashy ads and horrendously tiny text.

  

  My visitor length averages at approximately 4 minutes. Since my blog is a niche blog, mainly appreciated by women and personal blogger-designers, having 50% of my visitors stay on my blog for more than 30 seconds is considered pretty good. I don’t quite understand the 20% of visitors that stay on my site for an hour. But I’m grateful. You must really love my site - more than I do!

• Returning Visits and Feed Subscribers - Barometer of content quality

  Having returning visitors is a sign that your blog is producing original content, and generating interests among others. Unlike visitor length, the percentage is not as important as the actual count. Out of 200 visitors, I have around 50 returning visits and an average of 30 feed subscribers (including comment feed). It means my blog could do better to target more people and expand its niche. But for an almost 4-month old blog, I think it’s not too bad.

  

• Browser - Accessible coding for all

  There are so many designers out their fighting about whether to design for Firefox or IE. A simple look at your statistics can show who you should cater for. For me, out of 500 people, 350 Firefox, 100 use IE and 50 uses Safari. The answer? If you want returning visits or make it into design galleries, design for all of them.

• System Stats - Accessible design for the masses

  Like the browser problem, many people condemn designers for leaving 800×600 resolutions behind. But here is the hard cold facts from my Statcounter: 300 visits from 1280×1024 resolution, 100 visits from 1024×768, 10 from 1152×864 and a measly 5 from 800×600. Do you mean I should jeopardize the ease for 400+ people who have bigger resolutions for the 5 who have 800×600? Of course, I can design sites that have expandable divs, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble as I’m unwilling to forgo the ‘personal’ part of my personal blog for minor increase in accessibility. (But of course, you may beg to differ.) Besides, with the advent of feeds, they can ignore my inaccessible design for my content, if they wish so.

I’m not sure how you guys analyze your statistics but I hope I have enlightened a few people. And like I said, I’m not Web 2.0 savvy, so…

…do share your views on how you analyze statistics!

FYI, I am using the free version of Statcounter that can only view the latest 500 visitors’ in-depth stats, which can skew my analysis. Also, I blocked my IP, so statistics provided here do not include my own visits to prevent any further distortions.

P.S. A major update, Wordpress 2.5 is planned to be released tomorrow, so be sure to standby for the annoying yellow reminder. I guess not. Regardless, I’m psyched! Can’t wait. The Dashboard looks amazing and is AJAXed out!

28 Comments