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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

How many subscribers does your blog really have?

Let me tell you how many follow your blog in Google Reader

If you follow my blog for a while now, you've probably heard about my recent increase of traffic, which still hasn't stopped. It's slowly approaching 11.000 monthly hits (with over 20.000 page views), which is a 33% increase compared to last month. That surely can't be unnoticed by my sharp eyes, however let me stress, this is nothing compared to some other blogs out there, who deal with much higher numbers and have hundred times more hits than me. But I'm happy about small things. Even, if the numbers are humble, I'm still happy.

But something bothered me for a while now. How come my monthly hits are on the up, but the number of my blog subscribers fell enormously? I'm using Feedburner like most of the bloggers and my number of subscribers was always in the twenties. From 24 to 27 usually, only one time it was 30. I still felt the number is was small, but I hoped it would gradually increase. However in recent days my feed count chicklet was showing this ->

I thought: How can that be? My blog now has only 4 subscribers? That's impossible. And the number kept changing, one day it was 4, the next day 20, then 4 again. It pissed me off and I decided to remove it. Apart from 4 being an unlucky number for Chinese, I just felt it's a ridiculously small number and it may give new visitors to my blog a wrong impression.

I knew I have more subscribers and readers, I just needed to find a way to get the right number. So I started to Google and I came across this useful article by Chris F. Masse. He tells you how to find out the number of people, who subscribed to your blog in Google Reader, which is the easiest and most common way to follow blogs. Let me show you how I found out the real number of my subscribers:

1 First sign in to your Google Reader account.

2 Click on "Add a subscription", write your blog's name and press ENTER

MKL in da house, bebe!

3 After a short while, this will appear

My Awesome Subscriberos!

My number of subscribers in Google Reader is 103!

Now that's a number I'm not ashamed of and it makes much more sense, because everything's been on the up lately, only the Feedburner feed has been going down. But let me explain why.

There can be many ways to create a blog's feed. I chose Feedburner, but it seems that my followers don't really like to subscribe to that one. They most likely just copy and paste my blog's URL http://mykafkaesquelife.blogspot.com/ into Google Reader's "Add a subscription" box and subscribe to my default feed. Hence, my Feedburner's number remained low.

But my real number currently is 103. It says a lot, but not everything about my readers. Not everyone follows or reads blogs in Google Reader, there are many other readers and other ways to follow blogs. In my case it's like this:

Default feed: 103 subscribers
Feedburner feed: Between 20-27 subscribers
Google Friend Connect/Blogger: 80 followers
Bookmarked: At least 40 people

I'm just guessing the number of people who bookmarked my blog, but I see many on my trackers who come to my blog from a simple bookmark on their browsers.

Sure, all these are numbers and I have no idea how many people really read and like my posts. Some of you give me feedback and I thank you a lot. But I've seen an increase of many silent readers, who click on almost every link I place in a post. So I guess they read my stuff, too. Thank you as well.

Your blog list

And because I'm so grateful to some of you bloggers, I decided to do the job for you and tell you how many subscribers your blog has in Google Reader on day 25. May 2010 (keep in mind, the number can change on daily basis):

She in China (Jonna) - 1351 subscribers

Notes of a Toothfairy (Shirley) - 1104 subscribers
Pop Champagne (Julie) - 704 subscribers
Bee Creative (Kym) - 583 subscribers
Calligraphy in the Landscape (Ruma) - 632 subscribers
Insomniac Lolita (Andhari) - 514 subscribers
my site... my stuff... (Fufu) - 411 subscribers

Manju Gone Blog (Maju) - 367 subscribers
As Zewt As It Gets (Zewt) - 298 subscribers
Had blog (Had) - 268 subscribers
ChinkyMel's Corner (Mel) - 233 subscribers
My Secrets (Kasia) - 215 subscribers
Karen is here! (Karen) - 161 subscribers
Inside my Bubble Today (Wenny) - 160 subscribers
Carina the Blogarina (Carina) - 158 subscribers
Jamaipanese (Kirk) - 153 subscribers
I am Krissy (Krissy) - 138 subscribers
Musings of Painted Holy Grails (Ejann) - 121 subscribers
The Mercurial Wife (Johana) - 114 subscribers
My Kafkaesque life (that's me) - 103 subscribers
Solitary Panda (Floreta) - 82 subscribers (244 on your old blog)
Where did all the pecans go? (Nashe) - 81 subscribers
Lost... in Translation (Sharon) - 79 subscribers
French Sweets (Carine) - 63 subscribers
Cup of Ice (Shingo) - 46 subscribers
Lady Angele (Angele) - 45 subscribers
The Jessicat (Jessica) - 40 subscribers (Benjicajess.com - 118)
Daisy's Mad Tea Party (Daisy) - 39 subscribers
Curious Notions (Linda) - 32 subscribers
Booby Rants! (Sabrina) - 30 subscribers
Ms. Stefbunny (Stefanie) - 24 subscribers
KitKatoholic (Kit) - 21 subscribers
Junjie's China blog (Junjie) - 20 subscribers
So Flawed (Jaimie) - 16 subscribers
Trifledreamz (Adamantixx) - 15 subsrcibers
Netster's Blog 宅男 (Netster) - 15 subscribers
Lily murmurs in English (Lily) - 13 subscribers
My Word 1 (ZACL) - 10 subscribers
Taiwan Culture Exchange (Sander) - 8 subscribers
Girl Eats World (Linda) - 7 subscribers
The Brooding Lizard (Lizzy) - 5 subscribers
Japan, Gifu, Hida-Takayama (Saša) - 4 subscribers

UPDATE: Carina told me, that there's another (easier) way to find out the number of subscribers. Just sign in to your Google Reader, chose a blog and then in your upper right corner click on details. The number should be there :-) Thanks, Carina

I decided to link to the top 5 blogs. Keep in mind, this is only about your Google Reader subscriptions. People can follow your blog in many other ways. Hope the info is useful to you. Now I wish you happy blogging. Cheers!

Ps: If I made a mistake and messed up your numbers, please let me know and I will correct it.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

I Blog About Travel – Pick Me!

Reading Lily Riani's latest post, I decided to participate in the same "travel blog contest" as she did, which is btw open to anyone who blogs about travel. You also can join, if you mainly blog about travel.

Click here to see where Malaysian moms unite :-)

The contest is held by Mom Bloggers Planet, which is a blog directory primarily targeting Malaysian moms, but is also open to all women from all over Malaysia and the region. Since I've lived in Malaysia, have many Malaysian friends and followers, I decided to join this contest, which, in case I get chosen, would give my blog more publicity. I'm happy, if my efforts here get rewarded by more readers, who also enjoy traveling and seek some useful info about certain places. So let's get started. Here are my answers:

1 Blog Name/URL:

My Kafkaesque life - http://mykafkaesquelife.blogspot.com/

2 When did you start blogging?

I started to blog in October 2006, but only for a month. I lost interest very quickly. However I decided to blog again in March 2008 and ever since I'm blogging regularly and a lot, I wrote over 600 posts in 2 years.

3 Introduce yourself and your blog

I'm a 30 years old guy from Slovenia, a small country in central Europe. I love to travel and I love Asia, so I'm constantly trying to combine these two things. The time I spent in Asia is now over one year and I plan to live in Taiwan permanently and travel all over East and South East Asia in the future. Of course there's so much more about me than travel, my blog is full of other interests, but recently travel has become my main focus of blogging and I truly enjoy that.

4 Why do you blog about travel?

A while ago I decided to change my blogging style from personal to informational. I want to write good posts, provide good information to my readers and share good photos. In Taiwan I have the chance to see amazing places that are very easily accessible from Taipei City and the things I saw and experienced inspired me to share and write about travel more. I've also been to Macau and Seoul recently and I've blogged about these places a lot, too. And I plan to blog even more about travel in the near future, especially about my wonderful country Slovenia.

5 Do you make money with your travel blog?

Few weeks ago I put ads on my blog, but so far I haven't earned anything significant. If I earn some money in the process, that's fine. But I'm reasonable and stick to my own blogging plan, regardless if I can get money or not.

6 Why should we pick your travel blog?

Because I'm passionate about traveling and blogging. I pick the best photos, add maps, provide info about prices, transportation. I constantly strive to improve. Some of my posts took me hours like the Palaces of Seoul, each of them took me at least 5h to blog, because I wanted the perfect photos and info. If you check the linkbar and the pages about Taiwan, Taipei, Seoul and Macau, you will see work of many many hours, days and weeks. And there's a lot about Taiwan coming up in the upcoming weeks.

7 Website: Mom Bloggers Planet

MBP: http://mombloggersplanet.com/
Contest page: http://mombloggersplanet.com/contest-i-blog-about-travel-pick-me/

My dear followers, what do you say? Should MKL be featured on MBP? ;-)

Channing Tatum Short Hairstyles

Channing Tatum short hairstyle
Channing Tatum is an American actor & former model. He has sported many very short hairstyles that fit his face shape. He has a classic square shaped face with strong jaw line. Then, this very short hair with spiky in a squared off messy look works great for him.

Channing Tatum buzz cut hairstyle
This is a short masculine buzz hairdo for Channing. The style is easy to maintain hairstyle that can be created by using a clipper. It looks great on men with right shaped skull and without any scars on their scalp.

Channing Tatum crew cut hairstyle

Trip to amazing Yeliu and Keelung

Taiwan's northern coast with its magic nature

Yeliu, Taiwan

A while ago my girlfriend took me on a short trip to Taiwan's northern coast. And since it's really so beautiful there, I'm going to share with you some of my photos and tell you all about the amazing places we saw that day. We went to Yeliu 野柳 (also Yehliu or Yehliou), a Geopark with amazing natural formations and to Keelung (基隆, prounced similar to Chilong), Taiwan's biggest northern port, a bustling city of around 400.000 people, famous for its sea food, night market and rainy days.

It took us about 1h from Taipei to reach Keelung. The weather was hot and humid, but a bit cloudy. Actually I just wanted to see Keelung city, I had no idea about Yeliu, but my girlfriend was once there and wanted me to see it. If you want to read everything about what happened that day, check my photos and click on the links below, they will bring you to my posts.

A view on downtown Keelung. We took a bus here and headed to Yeliu.

✰ Check my post about Keelung here>>

Wanli, Taiwan

The bus took us to a small fishing town named Wanli. It's really beautiful.

✰ Check my post about Wanli here>>

And these are the famous rocks, carved by nature, thousands of years in the making.

✰ Read my Yeliu Geopark post here>>

And then I saw it: The famous Queen's Head (女王頭), the symbol of the whole region.

✰ Check more of my Queen's Head photos here>>

I love sunsets and this one is one of the most beautiful I ever captured.

✰ Check more of my Yeliu sunset photos here>>

After the long afternoon, we went to one of Taiwan's best and most famous night markets, to the Miaokou Night Market in Keelung. We really had a great time there as well.

✰ Check my Miaokou Night Market post here>>

What do you think about our trip to Keelung and Yeliu?

[My TAIWAN page][All pics by MKL, 2010]

Lloyd Daniels Hairstyles

Lloyd Daniels hairstyle
Lloyd Daniels hairstyles are easy to get if you know a hairstylist that works with young men's hair and has an eye for color. From the short hair that he wore when he first competed on X Factor, to the Emo hairstyle he is sporting for the 2010 tour, the style is a continuously growing and evolving work of art.

The basic cut is relatively easy to attain. However, you will need some professional assistance to get the right base and highlights to attain the look and style of the hair. From the almost platinum highlights to the softer shades that make up the base color, maintaining the carefree and casual style requires some effort.

Lloyd Daniels layered messy hairstyle
The carefree look of the style is accomplished through the combined use of an effective cut, proper color, and the right gels and pomades. The current style incorporates different highlighting colors that form a natural sun-kissed look. The gel and wax that holds the style in place, looks very natural and does not feel coarse or harsh to the touch.

When maintaining the hairstyle, it will also be important to condition with each wash and have regular visits with your stylist to maintain the cut and color of your Lloyd Daniels hairstyles. Talking to your stylist about the specific style you want to create and maintain will give you the ability to have the memorable and individual look that will be easy to care for and give you a signature brand.

Lloyd Daniels Hair Photos:

Lloyd Daniels haircut

Lloyd Daniels hairstyle

Leonardo DiCaprio Hairstyles

Leonardo DiCaprio Hairstyles Throughout The Years

Leonardo DiCaprio hairstyle
Leonard DiCaprio, he sure is a boyishly handsome guy. He is still a young man, even though he is well into his thirties. He has a large list of nominations and awards under his belt. Do you think he has an award for his hairstyle? His hairstyle is pretty popular in today's age. There are many guys who wish to look like him, but they know that they will never be able to do that, so they settle for one of his styles. So, what about Leonardo DiCaprio Hairstyles? Do you wish you could have one?

Leonardo DiCaprio blonde bangs hairstyle
A youthful, classic look from young DiCaprio. He had some variations include middle part, blonde bangs that were long and shaggy. They were almost perfectly round going all the way around his head. Do you remember these styles?

DiCaprio angled layers

DiCaprio long bangs
We have also saw him with angled layers and long bangs. The long bangs have been side swept to create a soft shape around his face.

Leonardo DiCaprio Howard Hughes hairstyle

Howard Hughes sleek and smooth hairstyle
When he played Howard Hughes in the Aviator movie, his hair was cut short with little layering around the edges. On the front, it was left a bit longer with jagged texture for that sleek and smooth. The style works best for men with straight and slightly wavy hair.

Leonardo DiCaprio slicked back hairstyle

Leonardo DiCaprio hairstyle

He also has a tendency to highlight his dark blonde hair with some lighter frosted tips. We have noticed that this style really brings out his blue eyes. Highlighting can also gives depth to your hairstyle. If you are going for a one length hairstyle, then you may want to look into this tip.