The LifeBlood of any Blog…

…is the interaction with those who read the content.

With this blog, you might be reading it online and you might also be reading a copy that’s mailed to you because you have subscribed to it.  Either way, I really appreciate that you take the time to take a look at the things that I write about.  I recognize that, in the big scheme of things, my ramblings are pretty small potatoes and I’m good with that.  It’s just a chance for me to share what I’m thinking and it’s so rewarding to see folks interact by reply, or liking, or sharing on Twitter, Google +, or Facebook.

Analytics don’t necessarily drive things for me – it’s the interactions.

Recently, it’s been the interactions that have me concerned.  Not the interactions from you good folks but the interactions from people I don’t know.

There’s a common practice that people come along and “Like” a blog post.  I’ve enabled that as a quick way for the good folks to say “Hey, I, well, liked it”.  But, if you look at the Gravatars from the people that are “liking” it, some of them are not educators.  I’m guessing that it’s a modern equivalent of link spamming.  They’re hoping that you click their Gravatar and going to their website where who know what you’ll find.  I hope that you’re not doing this.

The second thing that I’m seeing recently is a big upturn in people that are subscribing to the blog to get the content emailed to them every morning.  When I look at the email addresses, they’re sort of non-descript names usually attached to a Hotmail account.  I’m at a loss to come up with a reason why they would do that.  All that it serves to do is let them know that this blog is alive and well.

I got a whack of both this morning.  The “Likes” aren’t even of the current post.  So, I decided to look at the WordPress support database and see if I was the only one.

Somehow, it was comforting to know that I’m not.  Others are discovering and guessing much along the same lines as me.

• Fake “Follows”, “Follow” Spamming, and “Like” Spamming Rampant on Word
• New Way to Spam

So, what’s a blogger to do?  I could turn off the features but that adversely affects people that would use it effectively.  To do so would be to admit defeat.

Fortunately, I don’t think you can see the list of people that subscribe to the blog.  But, you can see the “Likes”.  I would suggest that you either ignore them or hover your cursor over them and look at the name that appears in the popup and think seriously before you click.

If anyone has any more detailed or insightful thoughts about this matter, please chime in.

Welcome to the internet.

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