My 15 Seconds of Fame

Allow me to be self-referential for a moment. There is a point to it.

Two weeks ago, I installed a counter at the bottom of my blog. I was feeling, I confess, a little neglected as a blogger. Wondering if anyone was reading. I started the counter at 2000, figuring that was a good estimate of the number of hits I've had in the year or so I've been writing.

After a week, my counter was at 4000-plus. Could I really have that many readers? Michael suggested my counter was malfunctioning. I wondered if I had a cyber-stalker.

So after a little investigation, I found a way of tracking more information about my readers. www.sitemeter.com can tell you, for free, the times, duration, page views, referring websites, and general locations of you, my friends.

I installed it on Monday morning, and soon discovered the reason for my recent popularity.

Laminin.

Roughly calculated, between 95 and 98% of my hits were coming from google searches involving laminin, directing readers to that post -- a slight post, really, in my mind, as it wasn't original to me. And most readers don't stay too long, I must admit (a little over a minute average. I love sitemeter's statistics. Kind of addictive, though).

But I'm fascinated by the fact that THOUSANDS of people are googling about laminin. They (you, if you're reading beyond that post) come from all across the United States -- California and Oregon, Florida and Maine, and everywhere in between, plus Hawaii; England, Norway, Kenya, South Africa, Qatar, Australia. Not to mention all of the people hitting the other blogs talking about laminin.

So I'd like to hear, especially from those outside of the United States -- how did you hear about laminin? Or, just comment about whatever you want to talk about. I'd love for this to be more of a conversation than a soliloquy. And a belated welcome! I'm so glad you're here.