Stats by email

As I’m sure most people do, I like to keep track of my Feedburner subscriber count. I don’t, however, want to display the subscriber count widget on my blog, and I definitely don’t want to have to log in to Feedburner just to check the current count. It’s just too much of a hassle and the truth is that I just end up forgetting and end up ignoring my blog. So instead, a little while back I setup a script to run once a week and go fetch the stats for my blog’s feed and email them to me. Getting the stats in my inbox allows me to stay current without having to remember to go check the site…if nothing else the email reminds me that I have subscribers and should probably get another post out (of course that doesn’t mean that I always do)…

All in all it’s the best method for me. I get the stats in my inbox and I don’t have to remember a thing, but I still get a constant, weekly reminder that I have a blog and that there are a few people that have (for whatever reason) subscribed to the feed.

I decided tonight to modify the script to email me my Twitter follower count once a week as well. It’s another stat I’d like to keep track of, but don’t want to go to the site to check. And of course another reminder to stay active. If you even remotely care about these stats I’d highly recommend doing something similar. It’s quick to setup (if you want the script I’d be happy to share it), and for me at least it makes all the difference in the world. I never used to keep track of these things, maybe check it once a month at most, and now I can get updates as frequently as I want without having to remember…freeing my mind to focus on other problems. Anytime I can do that it’s worth it for me.