Cookies For Breakfast

Beware! Advertisers are coming for your soul. Now that you're here it may be too late!

How'd you like my boogieman impression?

OK, calm down. Let me explain:

If you've never noticed (I never do), there are AdSense ads on my blog. When I created the blog, I thought it would be fun to see what Google thought belonged as advertising on my site. There was also the prospect of a paycheck from ad revenue in the event my scribblings became renown. Well, no such luck. I'm yet to earn a dime from the ads.

While they don't take up much space, I've toyed with the idea of pulling the ads and closing my AdSense account. The thought came and went, but I really didn't pay it any mind. That is until yesterday. Yesterday I recieved this email from my partners on the AdSense Team:

Hi,

We're writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site's privacy policies. You'll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site's privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we're unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to this upcoming enhancement.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team

First, I have to stop myself from pointing out the hilarious irony of "interest-based" advertising on THIS site. But it sounds pretty big, doesn't it?

Second, I should note that that little email has created quite a stir on the Inter-tubes. But I digress.

So what does this mean for you, my good reader? It means that the End Times are approaching. It means that Google, through me, is watching your every move. It means that with the one-two punch of Analytics and AdSense, Google will set the Mother of All Cookies in your browser. A monstrous cookie; one with the half-life of a Twinkee; one that follows you everywhere you surf; one that feeds Google's bottomless appetite for the almighty dollar and increased share-holder value. I, for my shame, have wrought this upon your soul and I am sorry. The least you can do now is buy from my line of whey-cewl cycling apparel.

A few tips: if internet-based tracking frightens you, you might want to find a hole or a cave to live in. But if you prefer to keep your suburban lifestyle, you might consider ditching Internet Exploder for Firefox with the AdBlock and NoScript add-ons. You might consider ditching Internet Exploder anyway. Because if, like me, you've realized the futility of maintaining any real privacy on the brave, new, ad-supported, corporate-controlled Interwebs, you might want to consider Firefox with the AdBlock and NoScript add-ons, just to keep a handle on the amount of information you expose.

Whew! I've done my part to keep the Intrabytes safe for democracy by raising a panic about your cyber-existence. I even went the extra mile and recommended a few simple work-arounds. For now I'm going to keep the ads and the reader counters. After all, the ads might make me some money one day, and the counters make really phat graphs. Won't you please buy my jerseys?

Analytics

Every now and then Google likes to remind me that there are tools available for measuring the appeal of my blog. I think I know the appeal: I have two Followers, one of whom is my wife, and I hardly ever get comments. Am I supposed to have a wider appeal? Dare I dream of an audience on the Internet?

Really, the blog is a vanity toy I use to document my attempts at youthful vigor or sketch a random thought. Everybody has one. I don't care who reads it, and I certainly don't expect to make a living at it. If I tried, I imagine I'd wind up in front of the publishing world equivalent of Randy, Paula, and Simon, having my ass handed to me for some heinous literary faux-pas.

My wife's blog though, that's another story. She can get thousands of unique hits a day depending on what group of Jesus freaks or Dr. Phil wannabe's she rankles. In real terms, that's enough traffic to sell the kind of advertising that pays bills. Even on a slow day her page rate is in the hundreds, because lets face it, there is a far wider audience of family voyeurs and moms comparing notes than there is of those who care anything about my take on local cycling.

Still, Google tools are simple to use, I was curious, and after a few months I had some pretty charts and reports to look at. The charts and reports tell me interesting things, like, that I have a semi-regular readership of eight; and that I have a "bounce rate" of about 80%. My most popular posts are about my submarine days, dealing with traffic, and the election (I always thought this one was my best post, but it certainly isn't the most popular). The Masi post gets the most referrals from Google searches.

Of my daily readers, most:
- use Internet Exploder;
- buy their internet access from a cable provider;
- spend an average of a minute-and-a-half on the site;
- wear spandex (I don't know how Google knows this).
I've had readers from nearly every state and a handful of foreign countries.

Sometimes, like yesterday, I get a spike in the number of readers. Normally the chart bumps along between four and eight readers a day. Suddenly it will jump to twenty or thirty readers then settle back down. This can happen once or twice a month. Google doesn't easily tell me what the extra readers are looking at or where they come from. I have to really dig to correlate page views to events. Most of the time I can't be bothered, but every now and then I'd like to know what's so interesting.

In Google's terms I'm pretty boring. Looking over my front page its not hard to see why: I publish a collection of gym workouts and ruminations about my rides around town, punctuated by the occasional commentary. To make it a bit more interesting I add maps of my rides, and links to sites published by riders who live around here - keeping the local flavor, if you will. No flashy graphics or formatting, just stuff by a hired hand at one of the local cube farms. So if I wanted to improve my readership, what would it take? What makes a great cycling blog?

Whenever I surf cycling, I notice the same three sites linked from the front page: BKW, Fat Cyclist, and BSNYC. They're even linked from my front page. Why? They seemed to be The Standard when I was putting my blog together and I jumped on the band wagon. To wit:

BKW is published by a pair of bike industry fixtures, Padraig and Radio Freddy, who I think sleep with their bicycles. They are so enamored of the sport and the lifestyle they feel the need to use the slang of the noun "professional" as a nominative verb, capitalizing the letters as if to shout it at you. "PRO is go!" Or, "that's PRO!" The diction is such that they belong to an exclusive club, with its own mores and customs that we casual riders ignore at our peril - kind of like we submariners did after we earned our dolphins (but I don't run around calling people NON-QUAL anymore). Over time I've come to appreciate BKW for the interviews, the clips of the various classic races, and the great insights from guys who take cycling very seriously.

Fat Cyclist is a truly funny journal. The blog is published by a fellow in Utah who calls himself Fatty. Fatty, of course, is something of a misnomer. Fatty isn't fat, he's a middle aged hobby rider with kids like me, but with a brilliant sense of humor. What's more, his wife is suffering with cancer and he's managed not only to maintain his sense of humor, but refine it. He also has his own line of cycling apparel that is continuously sold out. My Spring line will be debuting soon, and I'm hoping for his endorsement.

BSNYC is an amalgamation of BKW and Fat Cyclist. You get the wit of Fatty with the insight of Radio Freddy. When I read BSNYC, I dub over the commentary with the accent of the Brooklyn transplant who sits next to me at work. It's like having the cycling world related to me by Joe Pesci or Tony Sirico. The style is gritty and to the point, no mincing words or mixing metaphores. I mean, its New York City, for crissakes. The place where you can get laid just by doing a track stand in an alley (scroll down to the picture of a girls back). For contrast, let's see what's going on in St. Louis:
- Ewers smudged his carpet riding the rollers;
- Unit is busy defining embrocation, and still hasn't bought new shorts after his crash in the fall;
- James has the flu;
- some loony at Bugmans office shot herself in a porta-let (why Bugmans employer can't afford indoor plumbing is another matter).

As you can see, I have a long way to go before I have the kind of high-traffic, well respected, online journal that sell loads of pricey ads. I don't have the Phil Donahue/Montel Williams thing going for me, so I can't take that angle (or can I?). I'm not an cycling "insider" so I don't have the street cred thing going for me either. Maybe if I got a tatoo? Certainly I need to post more often than twice a week; and I need to make the posts - if not something funny or worth reading - at least snarky. My own line of clothing wouldn't hurt. Maybe I can have contest. Or take a few polls. Maybe I could buy Rock Racing. I'm open to suggestions....