Tuesday 12 August 2014

It's a Small World After All

I am fascinated by the internet's ability to connect us so easily no matter where in the world we live. If illness is a hinderance to travel, the internet is the next best way to find out about different places, cultures and ideas.

Lupey Loops has been an experiment of sorts to see how far and wide the words can spread via the blogosphere.  I have been keeping track and have some results to share.

Up until now, I had been keeping track of visitors' countries through the statistics generated by Blogger. Unfortunately, blogger only tells me the top ten sources (countries) of visitors each day. If there are more than 10, I won't know about it, and if I don't check daily, I might miss the statistic.

Of course, I do not always check in with the blog daily because I have a busy life.  There may even be technical circumstances unbeknownst to me that prevent a visit from being logged in the statistics too.

It doesn't worry me how many pageviews or visitors come, but it is interesting to know and fascinating to see where they come from.  At last I have found a "flag counter" gadget and have installed it today so from now on, it can remember how many countries have connected with Lupey Loops.

I don't have absolute faith in Blogger's information but, for what it's worth, I have kept a record of the countries from whence Lupey Loops' visitors have come, based on Blogger's reports:

77 countries so far!

Visitors to Lupey Loops have come from:

Argentina Iceland Puerto Rico
Australia India Qatar
Austria Indonesia Romania
Azerbaijan Iran Russia
Belarus Iraq St Lucia
Belgium Ireland Saudi Arabia
Botswana Israel Serbia
Brazil Italy Singapore
Bulgaria Japan Slovakia
Canada Jordan Slovenia
Chile Kuwait Somalia
China Latvia South Africa
Colombia Lebanon South Korea
Croatia Lithuania Spain 
Cyprus Macedonia (FYROM) Sweden
Czech Republic Malaysia Switzerland
Denmark Mexico Taiwan
Dominican Republic Netherlands Thailand
Egypt New Zealand Turkey
Finland Norway Ukraine
France Oman United Arab Emirates
Germany Pakistan United Kingdom
Greece Peru USA
Honduras Phillipines Venezuela
Hong Kong Poland Vietnam
Hungary Portugal


Some visitors may have found Lupey Loops by accident while searching for something else (or they may have really disliked what they found!) because some countries have registered only 1 visit but it still amazes me they found it despite being so far away from here (Australia).

I am impressed that there are so many visitors from non-English speaking countries. That says to me that crochet really can cross borders, break down barriers and be a common interest to bring people together no matter where in the world we are.

If you are still reading this (at the bottom of the page) then I say THANK YOU and I'm pleased to see you here! ;-)

If this is your first visit to Lupey Loops, I say THANK YOU again for taking the time to have a look. I will be pleased to meet you and hope to get to know you better.  Feel free to leave comments as I love meeting people and having a chat. If you are feeling shy, emails to jodiebodiecrochets@gmail.com are also welcome.


P.S.  As I was checking the title of this post, I realised how appropriate it is that my doorbell has always played the tune "It's a Small World After All"

5 comments:

  1. Wow! That's a lot of countries!!

    I love the fact that crochet connects people so well! It's like an universal language!

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    Replies
    1. I love it too, Anne! Look at us for example - you have made friends in Canada this year; you and I have now made an Australian:German connection and it's all through blogging about crochet!

      I do believe that people from different cultures have a lot more in common with each other than they have differences and the internet is a way to help people realise this fact. Crochet is one of those common interests. The diversity of what we all do with crochet is amazing and yet it is all crochet. I celebrate that.The diversity of cultures on our planet is also something to marvel at and celebrate, and while we are different, we are all human.

      Crochet charts enable people to understand the patterns regardless of language. I highly recommend learning to read crochet charts because they are (almost) universal. Whilst the English speaking countries have different terminology; e.g. Australian terminology has different meanings from that in the United States, the actual stitch symbols are fairly standard. I have noticed that some German and European charts have a different symbol system to the modern US ones but they are both more straightforward than having to translate other languages. "A picture paints a thousand words" so they say.

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  2. According to Blogger stats, visitors have arrived from China and Singapore but their flags are not appearing in my flag counter. So far, there are 19 different flags listed, 9 of which show multiple visits. When I see these flags, I think about those places and wonder what life is like there.

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  3. During the past week, Lupey Loops was visited from China, Ukraine and Romania and their flags have not appeared on the Flag Counter either. This has me puzzled. If you are a regular visitor and don't see your flag appear on the list within 48 hours of your visit, I would love it if you could confirm your visit with a comment here. Always nice to meet people from all over the world. :-)

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  4. This week Lupey Loops had the first visitor from Jamaica! Add this to the first list and that makes a total of 78 different countries that have connected.
    Sadly, the flags from Singapore, China, Ukraine and Romania still haven't appeared in the Flag Counter.
    Blogger has recorded a visitor from Belarus but that flag isn't on the list yet either.
    If I add these 5 countries to the 38 countries listed by Flag Counter, it adds up to a total of 43 different countries connecting with Lupey Loops since August. The internet is amazing,

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