Try as I might, I can't settle down with a single reliable service to track Web statistics. While I have been very happy with SiteMeter's premium offering for more than a year now, I have found the service often misses a great number of visitors, resulting in significant undercount - made more glaring by the addition of statistical tracking capabilities to other services, including Feedburner and MyBlogLog, giving me multiple sources from which to compare my own statistics.

Last week was among the most-heavily trafficked periods for louisgray.com since the blog's initiation more than eighteen months ago, led largely by a pair of referring links from popular Macintosh destination site, MacSurfer.com, who posted references to two of my Apple-focused stories, "iPhones Aplenty in Silicon Valley Geek Mecca" and "Attention Newbies: Not All Apple News Changes the World". But while it was clear site traffic was up much higher than normal, the varying statistics trackers had significant variations in how they accounted for the spike.

For the purposes of comparison, I'll highlight traffic from Tuesday to Thursday of last week (August 7-9):

Service	Unique Site Visits			Total Page Views
	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.
SiteMeter	244	255	320	314	325	375
Feedburner	552	542	617	684	625	716
MyBlogLog	235	261	310	317	329	386

Looking at the data side by side, it seems Feedburner, for whatever reason, counts upwards of two times the visitors as do MyBlogLog and SiteMeter. While each of the services accurately reported the most popular pages, and most popular referring sites, the total counts vary. This could be because some visitors have voluntarily blocked "*.sitemeter.com" from their ad blocker software, or it could be that one service handles duplicate visits or self-visits (a.k.a. mine) differently than others.

Additionally, running the downloadable software application "Summary" against the same log files confuses the issue even further. While SiteMeter and MyBlogLog report between 230 and 320 or so visitors from Tuesday to Thursday, Summary says those days were more in the range of 2,000 individual visitors, serving nearly 3,000 pages daily. Like with Feedburner, I believe those stats to be high. Unlike the other services, however, Summary reports "hijacked" page graphics, including the ANtics comics, as individual views, and may report visits from search spidering software, like Google or Yahoo! on par with "real" people.

All I really know is that blog traffic is consistently in the hundreds of visitors a day, that it's more likely toward the 200-300 person range than 700-2,000, and that there may be no one right answer to "How many visitors did I get today and how many pages did they read?" What statistics package do you prefer, and am I overlooking anything that could make this process more simple?

While many are debating whether bloggers should be considered on par with journalists, if microblogging through Twitter and others should replace standard blogs, or even if Facebook or LinkedIn are the new business cards in a technology oriented age, it seems to me the clearest, newest definition of a blog is that it is your personal brand. Whether you have tens of visitors or tens of thousands, whether you have dozens of comments or none at all, the content on your blog, in total, represents you, and if done well, can define you, to those who know you well, or those who do not.

By blogging about your interests, by sharing news, links and photos, you are helping explain to the world who you are, what you like and don't like, what you represent, and what you do. If you choose to break news or comment on the day's news, you are doing so through a personal filter which covers everything. If you choose to talk about sports and technology, your choices as to what you want to discuss help define your brand. And, more importantly, the quality of your posts, the frequency of your posts, the length of your posts, all those elements help to illustrate your writing abilities, your attention to detail, your ability to stick to a project, and comprehension or adoption of new technology.

A personal blog will always be much better as a brand than your Facebook profile or LinkedIn profile.

A Facebook profile, even with the newest enhancements to the service, shows photos, groups and networks you consider yourself part of, the friends you have, updates you provide, applications you have installed, and a short message board, or "wall". But the Facebook profile does not allow for much personalization of look, feel or content. The Facebook profile doesn't allow for post after post of prose. The Facebook profile allows you to show how you're connected to a friend, but doesn't give you a platform to talk about the relationship. The Facebook profile is not your brand, but instead the Facebook brand with a small helping of your content.

Your LinkedIn profile is an excellent business card and resume, with job history, relationships, and recommendations. But it is not your brand. Instead, it is one, strong, contributing element to your brand.

As important as it is for me to look to LinkedIn and Facebook to know about a new hire candidate, or to research acquaintances, a blog will go far beyond in explaining to me how this person wants to be portrayed. I now expect job candidates to have blogs, and make that part of the interview process, whether it's related to their position or not. Even if the big shots like Steve Rubel of MicroPersuasion and Robert Scoble are successful in moving microupdates away from their blog and to other services, their blog will be the best measure of their personal brand to me, and should not be abandoned, because no other single service can best be owned by and represent the individual.

Last night, when I tried to make two posts to the blog, Google's Blogger service stalled out, saying "your publish is taking longer than expected." But try as I might, repeated attempts went nowhere. Turns out FTP Publishing through Blogger was seriously broken, and not just for me, as a well-trafficked Google Groups support board shows.

Starting around 4 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday, Blogger users who utilize the FTP Publishing option, as I do, were unable to post new stories. And while they tried to contact Google through the company's own Google Groups service, the company made absolutely no response. You can see the frustration mount...

• Two hours in: "I'm seeing the same problem. Frustrating, isn't it?"
  
• Four hours in: "blogger just sits and spins without successfully publishing anything"
  
• Five hours in: "This is a serious problem! I can't believe it. Blogger should do something ASAP"

But Google didn't respond, and the service stayed down, driving users nuts.

• "Google's customer service is abhorent. These treads are full of issues that are never resoolved" (sic)
  
• "7 hours have passed since i first noticed FTP publishing was down..."
  
• "What happens now? Do we just discuss the problem amongst ourselves until a Blogger technician takes pity on us, or what?"

For many, it seemed incredulous that a company like this would be completely dark when all of us were affected.

"It is pretty unbelievable that it has been down so long without any kind of acknowledgement or statement from Blogger. Take 30 seconds to post an update!"

"Come on Blogger? What's up? Anyone got a update for us? Anything? It's 4:24pm (CST) here, and we're well over 24 hours into this issue with no resolution, nor any Google/Blogger response"

Meanwhile, the company's Blogger Status page never updated, nor did the Help site or the Known Issues page. Google never acknowledged a problem, nor did they come to the discussion board where those seeing the issue were asking for answers.

At some point mid-day today, the issue cleared up, but instead of an apology or an explanation as to what happened, or why it won't happen again, the company's users were ignored, expected to accept the level of downtime. I know it certainly threw a crimp into my schedule, and I'm not all that happy about it. It's enough to make me once again make sure I have all my data backed up and can change platforms (again) if necessary. I hope that won't be the case, but to answer a serious outage with silence doesn't fill me with pleasure.

Cross-posted to Athletics Nation...

Back in May, I took a look at this team, and for one moment, throwing statistics to the side, I thought I'd pull a reverse Moneyball and "go with my gut", telling you who were my top ten favorite A's players on the roster, at that point in time. As I wrote then, "While as A's fans, we remain loyal to our team, our loyalty to individuals can sometimes be as fleeting as a single at-bat or one relief appearance... And before anybody asks, yes, it is okay to include players on the DL or in the minors, if you must. But if they are traded, or waived, they cannot be listed."

Since May, much has changed. We've seen players go (Bradley, Melhuse, Kennedy, Kielty, Kendall...), and we've seen players get put on the ice shelf for safe keeping (Harden, Duchscherer, Loaiza, Snelling...). Meanwhile, the A's have won some great games, and lost more than I care to recall. So, it's time to roll out my Top Ten Current Favorite A's Players for August, and poll you for just how you're feeling. And before you ask, there are no wrong answers. If you want to vote for Crosby, go ahead. Just be prepared to defend your vote.

My Top 10 Favorite Current A's Players (August '07)

1. Travis Buck

Reasons: Despite Buck's being a rookie, he's become one of the most reliable offensive hitters, is always a threat to knock out a double or triple, and makes incredible catches in the field through Byrnes-like energy, but controlled. While Buck loses style points for his reduced hair content, he makes those points back for a clutch AN day 4 RBI.

2. Jack Cust

Reasons: While he's not the "home run every other at bat" type of threat we had naively hoped, Cust simply refuses to go quietly. In those at-bats where he's not striking out, Cust is willing to take a walk, lace a base hit up the middle, or bang a double off the wall. He's come from nowhere to be a strong middle of the order player in an A's offense largely devoid of scary hitters. (See also: Sports Illustrated: The Legend of Jack Cust)

3. Dan Haren

Reasons: A legitimate Cy Young candidate, Haren can match pitch for pitch with opposing team's aces, and give the A's an incredible chance of winning each time he takes the mound. Haren is also very quiet off the mound, not complaining about run support when that's an issue, or becoming a target for the tabloids.

4. Joe Blanton

Reasons: I have a soft spot for Kentucky Joe. On alternating starts, he looks like the second coming of Cy Young, only to follow with him being the second coming of Lenny DiNardo. Blanton, despite being all business on the mound, always seems unsatisfied with himself, and holds his expectations to a higher standard. Also, his manhandling of Ichiro and subsequent Blanton vs. World near-brawl showed incredible fire.

5. Mark Ellis

Reasons: Mark didn't even make my top ten last time, as I've grown so accustomed to his day in and day out stellar defense, but hadn't seen anything remarkable at the plate. That's changed. Mark is a serious #5 hole threat and is one back of the all-time Athletics franchise record for home runs by a second baseman. There's no question that by the end of the season, he'll own it.

6. Nick Swisher

Reasons: Nick always has something to say, and looks like the guy who would constantly be fun to be around. He also happens to be a great hitter, and can play multiple positions well when needed, and has added solid flexibility to Geren's day to day lineup. His power shortage and struggles at the plate of late have him down "this low".

7. Chad Gaudin

Reasons: I give Nico way too much credit here. The 2006 Gaudin was a guy who came out of the pen and walked too many people, with the occasional good outing. The 2007 Gaudin has surprised everyone with many a strong start, and helping to anchor the pitching staff, at least from the #1 to #3 position, when injuries have made others, like Loaiza and Harden a big fat question mark. That Nico called for him to be a starter early on was a gem.

8. Kurt Suzuki

Reasons: Kurt should be crowned for doing well enough in Sacramento to finally get the black hole of offense (See: Kendall, Jason) out of our lineup, alone. But despite his occasional struggles with the bat, we are charmed by his boyish appearance, the puka shells, and his promise to be a catcher of the future. Rather than watch one career in decline, we are part of his rise to glory.

9. Mike Piazza

Reasons: Anybody who hits home runs against the Angels with regularity joins this list. While we haven't had the full services of Piazza for long, it's clear that he makes the team's lineup better with him in it than when he's on the bench. Just the idea of a Swisher/Cust/Piazza back to back to back in the order makes me giddy. That he missed time with injury also can't be attributed to his carelessness or weakness, but instead, he was felled in the line of duty.

10. Donnie Murphy

Reasons: He's not Bobby Crosby for #1. As with Suzuki, the story of a rookie who gets called up to the bigs before they were expected is exciting, even as we know they don't usually start off hitting .300 with power. In his short time with the Club, we've seen the occasional timely hit, and haven't seen anything cringe-worthy in the field, which despite Crosby's tenure, was always an adventure, especially in the first half of the year.

That's where I stand today, and I'm sure you disagree. Tell me who I forgot, and who you openly root for. There's no call to be as talky as me, but have fun with it. On an off-day what would you rather be doing... work?