Where in the World … ?

Pop Quiz: Who or what is Burkina Faso? Had I not been looking at it in context, I might have guessed a fashion designer, a casino game, or a new hybrid grass seed. But it’s

Perhaps it’s a fashion designer from India …

 

not any of these. Take a guess — go ahead, guess. Give up? It’s a country in Africa. Really? Yep –I looked it up. It’s just north of Ghana and west of Nigeria. And why would I care? because, oddly, someone in Burkina Faso has read out my blog.

One of the fun things about writing a blog is that WordPress keeps track of the statistics — the number of people who look at my posts and the countries where they live.

I have not looked at this in awhile, so today I decided to see where in the world my readers live. Of course, I expected lots of people in the U.S., and I knew my friend Peggy in England was following it and was not surprised to see Brazil where Jean lived (next year it’ll be Bulgaria) and she must have told other people because there’s a whole bunch from Brazil. Oh, here’s South Africa — that’s where my friend Philip & his wife live, but Argentina? And Italy? I don’t know anyone in Italy. Maybe word is spreading — wouldn’t that be great?

My friend Kathi is helping me get my blog to a place where it is more easily accessible on-line and more people will see it. I follow several blogs and notice that there is a place where people can make comments. Try as I might, I cannot make that happen. I’m sure that once Kathi walks me through all the steps, that will work which will be lots of fun.

In the meantime, I’m delighted to see who’s following me. There is Cats at the Bar (http://catsatthebar.org) which every day posts cute cat pictures with clever captions, and the Drunken Cyclist (http://thedrunkencyclist.com) which has intriguing posts and rants about wine, and many others I also follow.

But back to who’s reading my stuff … here’s a bunch of hits from Australia! When my book publisher, Larry,  gave me the most recent royalty check for “Beyond the Spotlight: On the Road with Phyllis Diller,” he pointed out that it had sold in Australia. Phyllis had been to Australia, but unfortunately that was after my time — I would like to have gone there. So I was not overly surprised to see a bunch of numbers from Australia, but how about Albania, Moldova, Croatia, Ukraine and Estonia. Okay — I’m not kidding myself. These all one quick look-see — probably people trolling around the web for something to read. A few more hits in Latvia and Mongolia …

Moving on up the list in numbers, I find Bulgaria (Hey, Jean, you’ll have fellow blog-readers when you go there next year!), Tunisia, Thailand and Singapore. And, here’s a surprise: Russian Federation. Russian Federation? [quick pause here while I check Google … ] Oh it is a Republic of the former USSR. So I guess we’re saying Russia? (As in back in the USSR?) Someone there is reading my blog pretty often. I’m impressed because I would not be able to read their blog in Russian. Добро пожаловать на мой блог! (That’s Russian for “Welcome to my Blog!” Jean told me how to use Google translate.)

Near the top of the list with large numbers are the ones I would expect: English-speaking or multi-lingual countries, mostly European. The U.S., of course, is at the very top with thousands of readers. (Wa-hoo!).  

I’m sure this is of more interest to me than to you, but I must say I’m impressed with the power of the World Wide Web. Something I’m writing here at my desk in Las Vegas is available to someone on the other side of the world within minutes. Even people in far-away places like Burkina Faso can be transported to the Entertainment Capital of the World with just a click of a mouse. Is this a great invention, or what?