Mapping visitors
As ever an embracer of new tools and apps that let me customize my Windows or my blog, I've just found a rather interesting tool that will show who's visiting my blog at any given moment.
What's cool about this one is that it shows this info as a world map and identifies which countries visitors are from. It updates in real time.
So about a third of the way down in the right-hand column, you'll see the map showing you (your country) online as well as the countries of every other visitor here if you're not the only one.
Offered by Geoloc of France, it's free for 60 days.
Update 15 December: While this is a very cool tool, experience with it so far is that it is not reliable enough to use. Great to see the throbbing green doughnuts (see comments for more on that!) and red dots, but most of the time, either the map displays without showing any data or it doesn't appear at all. A note on the Geoloc website during the past week talks about database problems, still unresolved its seems. So I've taken it down for the time being.
Update 16 December: I wrote to Geoloc a few days ago; this is what they said: "Le probleme est passagé, j'attends juste le changement de DNS pour rediriger vers le nouveau serveur dédié. Désolé pour ces perturbations." Basically, DNS and new server, problems now fixed. So I've re-enabled the map again.
Update 30 December: Suddenly started getting Flash 7 errors in Firefox whenever I visted any site (not just my blog) that displays the Geoloc map. Resulted in application freeze and unstable system requiring a restart. Not good! Email to developer, and map wholly disabled for the time being.
Wow, that is really cool! Thanks for the heads up Neville!
Posted by: Candi Clevenger | 08 December 2004 at 15:20
Nice little gadget - thank you :-)
Best Regards
Hans Henrik
Posted by: Hans Henrik | 09 December 2004 at 00:55
Yes, a clever idea. But not working properly on my ibook with Firefox, unfortunately.
Posted by: Andrew Denny | 09 December 2004 at 03:20
It would be near-perfect if it could actually find Scotland. That annoying little throbbing doughnut presumes I'm somewhere within a hundred miles of London.
That's Geoloc off my Christmas list.
Posted by: Neil | 10 December 2004 at 01:05
Yes, I've notcied some issues with how the map displays. At the moment, for instance, it's not showing the names of visitors' countries. It also seems to rest its counter so you don't get the cumulative indicaor of who has visited (the little red dots).
I headed over to their website and found this notice posted:
"GEOLOC has data bases problems. we work to recover the entirety of the services as fast as possible. A light service was set up, we are waiting for informations about hour provider."
Neil, I know how you feel with that! Must be a similar feeling if you're a Scot when you meet someone and they ask which part of England you're from. Or, if you're a Canadian, when you speak someone asks which part of the US you're from. Same with NZers and Australians, I expect!
Posted by: Neville Hobson | 10 December 2004 at 10:38
Presumably I am the US doughnut now being displayed. It seems to be centered near Washington, DC, which is where AOL usually announces its entrance to the web.
So perhaps Neil is being displayed at the location of his ISP, or else GEOLOC spots us at our capital cities, and is using an old map that still shows Scotland to be part of the UK.
Posted by: Tony Doumlele | 11 December 2004 at 00:37
Tony, yes, I think the map works by displaying the visitor country and putting the thobbing green doughnut (what a great description!) approx where the country's capital is. Same with the red dots showing previous visitors.
I've noticed each time a visitor from the US lands on the blog that the indicator is always about where Washington is, no matter where they are in the US.
So for Neil's issue, being in Scotland, the map shows him as from the UK so will show the indicator roughly where London is.
I bet the developer didn't imagine such potential issues!
Posted by: Neville Hobson | 11 December 2004 at 12:42
I want to place geo-loc(free tool) in my blog. But i dont know how to fix sign up. Could u please help me in this regard.
Posted by: cokegirl | 14 January 2005 at 19:53
cokegirl, it's not that easy to figure out what to do on the Geoloc website!
But here's how you start.
Go to the website (http://www.geo-loc.com). Choose the English version if you don't speak French.
Then, click on the link that says 'inscription' (same in English and French) and you'll get a screen where you fill in your email address, the name of your blog, the URL and provide a password.
Then you select which colour you want your visitor map to be.
Once done, click the button that says 'subscription' and you will get a page with the code you need to include in your blog. You've got a BlogSpot blog, so not too difficult to put that somewhere in your template so the map appears in the place you want it.
I hope this helps!
Oh, by the way, I re-enabled the visitor map on my blog (forgot to update my post) as the problems it had before have been fixed, according to Geo-loc.
Posted by: Neville Hobson | 19 January 2005 at 19:09
Me very very new blogger. You very very good blogger!
Actually, just wanted to update that Geo-Loc is down again as far as their website is concerned. Not sure what the problem is - but I guess they have taken down future subscriptions.
Darn, I wanted that cool thing too!
Posted by: Venkat | 07 May 2005 at 19:02