One of the Earliest Pictures from Stanford Hospital A Year Ago

Exactly one year ago at this moment, my wife and I were at the Stanford University hospital in Palo Alto. She was in labor, and the two of us were eagerly awaiting the arrival of our twin boy and girl. We didn't know what they looked like. We didn't even know what we were to name them, and we didn't really know how much our lives would change. We didn't have a crystal ball into their budding personalities, and we never imagined how much fun we would have once they joined our family.

On June 20th of 2008, Matthew David Gray and Sarah Elizabeth Gray joined our family. We share with you some of the highlights in pictures. Even for those of you who follow us closely on other networks, some of these photos are new - having never been posted to the Web. Scroll down just to watch the kids grow before your eyes. You can catch more on Matthew and Sarah by following our Smugmug account or The Gray Effect.

Thank you for being part of our extended family and community.

June 2008

My Tweet that night, alerting the world we were on our way.
(Discussed on Friendfeed)


Matthew and Sarah debuted on June 20th, but were quite small. Sarah stayed at the hospital another week, as she worked hard to grow.



July 2008

Once we got the twins home, it was remarkable how small they were.



August 2008

By August, they grew used to being part of our family.

September 2008

In September, many evenings were spent with me, as my wife attended her masters' program.

October 2008


By October, though still small, the kids' facial expressions became very clear.

November 2008



By November, the two were playing along with our Schwag Magnets routine, sporting Web 2.0 logos which previously couldn't fit at all.

December 2008




December saw Matthew and Sarah grow more curious about the world around them.

January 2009


The two spend practically every waking (and sleeping) moment together.


February 2009


As the twins grow, they present quite an armful.

March 2009



One thing we never expected was how happy and upbeat Matthew and Sarah both are. The times they cry or get frustrated are far outweighed by their smiles and shouts of glee.

April 2009

The two tag along with my wife to CostCo.

Sarah exults at a friend's party. (Photo by Rachel Fox)


May 2009

Matching clothes are too tempting for the boy/girl twin set.


June 2009

As the twins grow, they get more inventive about boundaries.


The pair relax together on Robert Scoble's recliner.

Yesterday

Flying down to San Diego for a cousin's wedding, the two prepare in the airport.
Anybody who has ever been a parent knows the perfect bond that can exist with children. That we were so blessed to get two amazing children at once is something that is indescribable. We are ecstatic every day, even during tough times. But there aren't that many, and we are looking forward to year number two!

The dust has not yet fully settled on yesterday's news that RSS feed circulation numbers around the Web spiked, thanks to a new tie-up between FeedBurner and FriendFeed that essentially counted social networking subscriptions as equal to those who signed up for your RSS feed directly. But while more and more people find their statistics up by thousands, and in some cases, orders of magnitude, the discussion has led away from what is "right" or "wrong", but instead, investigating what a real subscriber was anyway, and if we should stop thinking the way we always did.

The worlds of blogging and social networking are numbers-obsessed, and the statistics are so full of holes, most aren't even worth repeating. I may be "following" 10,000+ people on Twitter, but I rely largely on the search tool, or browse individuals' updates in Friendfeed. On FriendFeed, the story is much the same. I heavily utilize lists to categorize people I follow and make sure I don't miss the best content, but I absolutely see a small fraction of items. And don't even get me started on Facebook. Given I practically only go there to accept friend requests, play games against my family, or respond to wall comments, I certainly didn't see the photos you just posted.

The "fake follow" is absolutely in effect - even with best efforts.

But in parallel, I've treated RSS (and e-mail) differently. I believe Google Reader is the gold standard for finding information, and the link blog I produce through sharing the best items is essential for me to highlight what I find best, and for those who follow it, relying on me as a human filter. As such, while I may read quickly, and skim often, I always, always, read every story from every feed, to the tune of 100%. Similarly, I always have read every e-mail, even if I haven't made the time to respond.

But not everybody treats RSS and RSS subscriber counts with such velvet gloves as I do - which means two major things. First, total RSS subscriber counts usually far exceed total page views on most blogs, as RSS items pile up in readers around the world and go unread. Second, the religious adherence to a subscription number in RSS that I tried to have, in the face of bundling and statistics that led me astray, is easily shouted down by reason.

I used to look at subscriber counts as a good benchmark for how much influence a blog might have. A blog with 2,000 subscribers typically reaches more people than one with 200, and less than 20,000. With the addition of more horizontal social networking "followers" or "friends" in the mix, I have to look at the number as potential. For example, the new number of about 14,000 listed on my blog (up from 8,000 earlier this week and 5,000 in April) represents the maximum potential people who would see my content if everybody who subscribed to my content on RSS or FriendFeed actually kept their subscription going and active.

And it is this "potential" that is the new reality, more so than a hard and fast number you can set your watch to. But it's also a slippery slope. If we all start signing up to RSS feeds but we don't read the blogs, and we all fake follow on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and every other network out there, there's not really a whole lot of social going on - just blasting out data, friending and hoping that you're the exception rather than the rule.

To accept my new statistics, and those on other blogs impacted, the new reality requires a changed mindset. It's not saying one way is right and another is wrong, but instead, seeing the new data through the prism of our new world, where with so many information streams out there, we are all hoping that our data will catch someone's eye, not that it always will.

Ever since I rented an Audi in 2007 while traveling that came with satellite radio preinstalled, I have been smitten with the idea of Sirius Radio, and specifically, the station Area, a great Dance and Electronic station featuring some of my favorite DJs, including Paul van Dyk and Paul Oakenfold. As my last car started to die, I always imagined my next upgrade would include Sirius Radio, letting me get crystal-clear music no matter where I drove.

As you already know, I got my next car after all, and it didn't come with Sirius Radio. So I've been holding out for the company's iPhone application to debut. I now had this fantasy of using the line-in feature to my car, streaming satellite radio through the iPhone and essentially reproducing the experience. That I already have thousands and thousands of songs in my iTunes library was really not an issue - for the geek in me wanted it anyway.


Browsing Sirius Radio on my iPhone
Last night, following the release of the iPhone's 3.0 software, I picked up the Sirius Radio application, registered for a seven day trial, and practically ever since, I've been hooked into the station Area. No commercials and outstanding music. I've had my headphones cranked up when at home, and I even hooked up Area when I have been at the office, preferring good music to being on the phone or engaging with co-workers.

But, surprisingly, I couldn't get Sirius to connect when I was driving, as I toggled back from Edge or 3G on AT&T's network. The one place I thought I could really use Sirius radio, so far, has been a complete zero, saying it was unable to connect.


If Only I Could Pay for Just This Station...
Given I already have days and days and days of music to catch up on, which is already at my fingertips at home or at the office, with my laptop, and also given that I can play this music in the car whenever I want, Sirius' offer fits a very small niche that I would have to work very hard to justify. And while others are complaining that Sirius has not preloaded the app with shock jock Howard Stern or some of its sports coverage, I don't care for Stern, and can get all my MLB games, in audio, using the MLB application for the iPhone.

I admit I love the station Area. Part of me wants to close my eyes and hand over the credit card, paying $12 or so a month to get that station alone - and just maybe I will, if I can get it to connect to the car consistently. But realistically, the debut of Sirius radio for a platform that already has formidable competitors in Last.fm and Pandora, not to mention my own bloated music library, is a tough one. Only if I feel a nagging itch to throw away more money on my music will this happen, and if I ever get too loopy, there's always the option provided to me by Apple of updating my entire library to iTunes Plus for about $400.

So for the next 6 or so days, I will crank up Area. And when that free trial ends, something dramatic will have to have happened to get me to do more than just uninstall. (See Also: Sirius Radio Now Looks Like an Outer Space WebVan)

It's tempting to go back the age-old line of there being lies, damn lies, and statistics. On the Web, where practically everything is measured and big numbers are almost always better, counting up one's followers, friends, subscribers or authority is practically a pasttime. But with each metric comes a question of validity - how did they approach that data, and is that process consistent with the world view of what is factual?

Today, for reasons known only to their team, FriendFeed started to display subscriber counts to those FriendFeed users who are importing blog posts alongside all other subscribers, displayed in FeedBurner or any other blog analytics tool. With this change, popular FriendFeed users have seen a dramatic jump in their feed subscriber counts, even if actual traffic or readership to their sites has not changed.


BlogPerfume Shows My Stats Spiked Today
A clear beneficiary of this move, my own statistics ballooned from a possibly accurate count of just over 8,000 subscribers on this blog to more than 13,000. And in parallel, thanks to my importing my posts on my wife's blog, her count catapulted from just over 50 to more than 9,000. (For a site that gets only dozens of visits a day)


My Wife's Blog Stats Are Through the Roof
Coincidentally, my RSS subscribers had already been jumping, starting in late April, for reasons largely unbeknownst to me. In the last two months, I organically saw the subscriber counts pass the 5,000 barrier and crest to the more than 8,000, as I poked through the stats and tried to find out why - considering both Google Reader bundles and possibly a part-time inclusion on the Techmeme leaderboard as factors. But now, pointing to that growth seems silly, given FriendFeed flipped the switch and gave me a big, albeit likely false, foundation.


FriendFeed's Impact Rivals that of Google On This Site
The company's comments on this change state that "you are putting your words in front of a lot more people", so theoretically, they should be counted. But I believe it is less-intensive to follow someone on FriendFeed than it is through standard RSS, and I have no idea how this handles duplicates, though I can guess it's somewhat controlled, given my own stats jumped by a mere 5,000 when my wife went up by more than 9,000.

Rob Diana of Regular Geek clearly made his comments understood, when he said, "Subscriber Counts Now Mean Nothing".

Since you don't have admin access to my FeedBurner stats, you can see the jump by taking a look at Blog Perfume's Feed Analysis tool here.

So the question is - why? Did the FriendFeed team just want to extend the visibility of how much impact their service has with bloggers? This move makes them a clear rival to Google in my own statistics. Or did they really think this was a way to show, accurately, how many people you were exposed to? Either way, as I said on a thread in the site, what's done really can't be undone. I hate upward spikes as much as I hate downward spikes, as we've seen when FeedBurner and Google FeedFetcher miss each other in the night. But it's not accurate, especially when it comes to small blogs hiding on big accounts (like with my wife's blog on my ID). I just hope Twitter, Facebook and other sites don't choose to do the same thing, or we can call the whole tracking bit a wash.