Attention From statzen

A new feature got added to statzen today. It is something I have been thinking about implementing for a while but just haven’t had the time. If you look over to the right of this post you can see it in action. Yep, it is a tag cloud.

This is a little different than any other tag cloud I have seen before. The weight of the tags is based on the attention from readers that the tags are getting. Since statzen is tracking hits from both the web and feeds, it is representative of both those distribution channels.

Currently, the widget is displaying the 25 most read tags from the past 7 days. As you can see, my readership is fairly flat so there is not a big distribution. However, since it is showing both web and feed readers, it is a good mix of old and new content.

I set it up so that each account can set a base URL for tags to point to. I am choosing to use the tag pages that are a part of my blogging platform (serendipity), but other users could just as easily have it point to a technorati search for their blog, a page on statzen, or any other service that would make sense.

I am thinking this widget might make it easier for people to try statzen in a meaningful way without requiring them to give full control of their feed to statzen. Making it easy and safe to try will be key to it’s success.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. It is a work in progress.