Aloha to the Silent and Faithful.

RSS has taught me a whole new way to respond to my silent but faithful customers.

Yesterday I created a new feed for my MWA page right before I posted my reinvention of it and clicked on the magic “make it public” button. Then I created a new StatCounter project for it (which I’m liking much better than SiteMeter — thanks Chris, when I noticed you were using it on your two blogs it was a good enough unspoken recommendation for me). At the bottom of my left column on the MWA page you can see both things under a heading called pono hana, my own Hawaiian slang for the Tech Tools on this blog (same location), pono-right, hana-work, so “tools” to me, with the kaona (hidden meaning) of “works right for work.”

So this morning, turning on the computer for me stirred up those feelings of being 6 or 7 years old again and waking up Christmas morning — I couldn’t wait to see those stats, even knowing that Sundays are not the best of traffic days in cyberspace. So barely 7am my Hawaii time, and there were gifts for me from two of you so far: my first feed subscriptions for the new MWA page.

Here’s what all this lead-up’s been about: (after 7 months of blogging now I still am in wonder about this stuff) I do recognize both of you in a certain way. I don’t believe you have ever emailed me or left a comment for me, and I don’t think you have an email subscription, but you’ve each picked up a feed for the three I do have with FeedBurner:

For Talking Story
For my del.icio.us tags, and now
For my new Managing with Aloha page.

You are among my silent faithful, and I’m writing this post this morning just because I want to say mahalo to you: please know that I really appreciate you — all of you.

Your privacy is assured, and I want you to know I don’t go digging (I don’t think it’s possible, but I would not betray your trust that way even if it were — that’s why I refuse to turn on my stats for others to see).

I can only identify you in certain ways: by the part of the country you’re from, the browser and operating system you use, and if your Bloglines subscription number pops up in my referral logs as a couple of examples.

Let’s look at Talking Story: Right now this picture will give you more privacy than the MWA one.

Click on the pic to make it bigger please, I still need to learn how to do that, sorry.

I do begin to sense your habits (do you click in or only use the feed reader, how long you stay once you arrive, if you care to read other’s comments or never bother clicking on those links) and so there’s still a chance I’m wrong, but I do think it’s still you and not someone new who just found me.

Besides wanting to say thank you — very, very much — I also realized that I haven’t been working hard enough for you by finding cool new pages in cyberspace: I haven’t updated my del.icio.us page for a while. So even in your silence, you are talking to me, and I am listening. I’m hoping to do some del.icio.us tagging in the next week in my downtime on vacation: my family watches the tube, I surf the web or read.

So aloha kaua e my Silent Faithful, (aloha kaua e means my aloha is shared with you in the warmth of good friendship) mahalo nui for your faith and trust in me. You are my reason for doing this. Have a good week with the Ho‘ohana Online Community.

Whenever you do decide to comment, we’re all here for you, not just me, okay?

Tags: Mahalo. Aloha. Community. RSS.

3-31-05 Update: Read something on Rob Merola’s DaddyRoBlog today which I thought it was an interesting corollary to this: Click into The Advantages of Anonymity.