This blog has been around for 16 months, so it’s time to take stock. Some posts have been better than others, admittedly, and there have been dry periods, when other projects have distracted me from blogging for weeks. But I’m stickin’ to it until I literally run out of words.
Since I’m taking stock, I’ll be egotistic for a moment and share a few amazing facts about my readership. One of my favorite analytic tools is FlagCounter, which you can see in the right-hand margin of my blog. Flag Counter, among other things, tells you from where in the world your readers have visited.

School Communications 2.0 has received:

1,782 visits from the United States (I’m going to assume that 100 of those visits were from the author)

290 visits from the Philippines

243 visits from Canada

169 visits from the United Kingdom

141 visits from India

107 visits from Malaysia (who knew?)

77 visits from the Netherlands

66 visits from Australia

And the list goes on, with a good number of visits from countries in Europe, as you might expect. But it’s when the numbers begin to dwindle down to single visits that I’m reminded how awed by the Web I continue to be. Here are just a few of the visits that fascinate me:

4 visits each from Jordan, Vietnam, and Kenya

2 visits each from Croatia, Moldova and Oman

1 visit each from Mongolia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan and Morocco.

And finally, on March 27, I received a single visit from the Holy See (Vatican City State).

My guess is that someone at the Vatican stopped by to read my post about the Pope’s YouTube page. Perhaps the Official Papal Social Media Guy. Whatever. The point is, he stopped by.

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Just when you think the Internet is saturated and things can’t get any more interesting, you discover new sites and blogs that just blow you away. I love to stumble across sites that make me ask: “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Three such sites come to mind, each one notable for its creativity. You must check these out:

1. One of my favorite blogs is Cake Wrecks, a clever blogspot blog that’s been around for just over a year and is “eating up” the competition on Google page ranks. Here’s the tag line for this blog: When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong. This is a hilarious site, create by Jen Yates, that feeds off the submissions of whacky looking cakes that readers have either made, ordered or received. Among other things, this site, and the others I list here, are successful because the owners write well. Look for great captions and subtitles. Here’s a sample cake photo from Cake Wrecks:

The title above this entry (which included a seriously long menu of “horse” cakes) was: Why beat a dead horse…when you can eat one?

Yates has written a book, naturally, and is selling a variety of T-shirts, affectionately called “Wreckwear.” Her contributors and fans (legions of them) are called Wreckies.

Now why didn’t I think of that?

2. Again, a site that lives and breathes based on the contributions of others: AwkwardFamily Photos. This one, which was featured on The Today Show last week, was also passed along by my work colleague, John Resanovich, who is always sending me cool sites. Warning: Before you go on AwkwardFamilyPhotos, take a bathroom break. Otherwise, you’ll have an accident from laughing so hard. These are some of the most hilarious photos you could imagine.

Here are a couple of samples from Awkward, also notable for its spot-on captions and subtitles.

This one is titled: Joy Ride

And this one is called Mommy-the-Pooh:

3. Finally, I must introduce you to Good Magazine’s examination of a series of photos of the insides of people’s refrigerators. They were produced by photographer Mark Menjivar, and collectively make a fascinating statement about what our refrigerators say about us. For example:

Here’s what the caption says:
Carpenter/Photographer | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household | 12-Point Buck | 2008

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Fuelmyblog and Blurb are teaming up this month to create a global cookbook. Any blogger who has joined up with Fuelmyblog as a member can contribute a traditional recipe (they prefer recipes that are generic to your location in the world) and photos to be included in their Global Cookbook. Fuelmyblog says their membership represents just about every country in the world.

At the top of this post, you can see one page from Fuelmyblog’s last book venture, “The Human Behind The Avatar,” also published on Blurb.

All bloggers need to do is send in the recipe and photos taken of the completed dish, and Blurb will actually compile the book. Blurb is a web company that allows anyone to create customized books by downloading their free software and then creating books. Blurb is known for the high quality of their books. The actual printed version of your book is what you pay for.

Recipes should be sent to: cookbook@fuelmyblog.com. You need to include your name for credit and the URL of your blog. The top 10 recipes in the book get a free copy of the cookbook from Blurb. Fuelmyblog members can also get a 10% discount off their first purchase from Blurb.

Hurry to participate. The deadline is Nov. 30 and the cookbook will be ready in time for the holidays.

Last year, the FMB community created a book called “The Human Behind The Avatar” (you can take a look here). It was a great initiative and we have had hundreds of great comments.

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I received an email today from the producers of [Title of Show], a Broadway show I recently went to see that was terribly clever, funny and unique. The email announced that the show is scheduled to close in October, way too premature as far as I’m concerned, and asking me to sign a petition on behalf of the show to get them more exposure. Specifically, the producers hope to get a performance from the show on the “Ellen” show sometime in the near future, and thereby stave off the retreat of investors and the show’s demise.

I clicked on the link, which took me to Care2, a petition site that hosts petitions of all sorts, giving you a chance to sign, write a sentiment and press a big “sign” button to get the whole thing out there. Of course, you also get a chance to email your friends and ask them to pass it on.

After signing the petition on behalf of my Broadway pals, I started to roam around Care2 to look for more causes and petitions. What I found there was both educational and moving.

Care2 lists and features petitions and causes of all kinds, from the about-to-close Broadway show to hunger and poverty worldwide. Among the causes are human rights, poverty, women’s rights, political issues, children, and more.

How about a petition to urging Congress to protect the Arctic Refuge, now threatened by President Bush’s budget proposal, which calls for drilling to resume in the refuge in 2010?  Cool. The Arctic Refuge is the most important denning habitat for this country’s vanishing polar bears.

Oxfam America is there with a number of petitions, one of which asks the U.S. Senate to co-sponsor the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act, which would require the public disclosure of payments made between oil, gas and mining companies, and their host governments.

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During the past week, I have suffered in a minor way from laptop withdrawal. My mother was visiting me from Florida (which explains my absence from this blog), and I was thoroughly part of the real world — Broadway shows, bus tours, dining out, shopping, conversing, catching up. Every now and then, it would occur to me that my laptop might miss me, but I was bonding with my 75-year-old Mom. And yet, when I sat down to check daily emails and write one freelance piece, she said stuff like: “Wow, does anyone talk anymore?” Or: “Are you always online?”

This week, National Public Radio’s Scott Cameron, Editor of “Talk of the Nation,” noted in the program’s blog that someone in his building “has been known to sit in one of the stalls in the men’s room and click-click-click on his Blackberry while – er – doing his business.”

Why did Cameron bring this up? Because according to a new Sheraton hotels survey of 6,500 traveling executives, 35 percent of them say they would choose their Blackberry (or similar PDA) over their spouses. Another 87 percent said they bring their devices into the bedroom, 84 percent check their emails before going to sleep and 80 percent check their emails as soon as they get up, “before their first cup of coffee.”

Weirder still — 85% peek at their e-mail in the middle of the night. I thought I was bad.

On the flip side, say the Sheraton folks, 84 percent of these professionals said the technology allows them to spend more time out of the office and enjoy more quality time and flexibility with their family and friends.

Mom — I don’t even own a Blackberry. Not yet.

But, as NPR’s Cameron points out, “this is so much bigger than the Blackberry…laptops, PSPs, cell phone, portable DVD players, iPods, all tend to make their way into the covers” (or under the sheets).

Just check out this New York Times story, “Laptop Slides Into Bed in Love Triangle,” as proof. And note that it was published in August 2006.

Send me your comments — do you spend more time with your technology than with your loved ones? Would love to hear your stories.

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I’ve signed up to participate in the Bloggers Unite initiative on Nov. 10. This worldwide initiative will benefit Refugees United with information, which leads to empowerment.

Refugees United is a non-profit organization that helps refugees relocate family and friends through the use of the internet. It provides refugees with an anonymous forum to reconnect with missing family members. By registering with nicknames, scars, former locations and other markers only identifiable to family and close friends, everyone can remain ‘invisible’ to all but their relatives.

The Refugees United search engine is the first of its kind. Visit Refugees United to see how it works and to learn more about the work that Refugees United is doing. You can also read the Refugees United blog.

Here’s what Bloggers Unite says about this effort:

It is very difficult to reach refugees in remote areas. By advancing the power of blogs, bloggers are effectively placed in a position to fulfill a job that could not be done without the power of the internet and the skills that bloggers possess to quickly and effectively raise the necessary awareness and aid about critical social causes. We hope you will join us, as together we harness the expression of the blogosphere to reunite family members who have been separated from each other.

Bloggers who participate will blog about any refugee issue to help shed light on the plight of refugees and the hardships they endure around the world. If you have a blog, join the effort.

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My 18-year-old son is always wearing one of those colorful rubber bracelets signifying his concern for global problems — hunger, war, cancer. Our young people are always setting examples for us, aren’t they? Now it’s my turn, by participating in Blog Action Day 2008 – Poverty, a worldwide attempt by bloggers to all write a post about this issue on the same day — October 15th. So far, more than 900 websites (and counting) have signed up to participate with an audience of more than 2 million reaaders.

Here’s how Envato, the non-profit behind the idea, described Blog Action Day:

Global issues like poverty are extremely complex. There is no simple, clear answer. By asking thousands of different people to give their viewpoints and opinions, Blog Action Day creates an extraordinary lens through which to view these issues. Each blogger brings their own perspective and ideas. Each blogger posts relating to their own blog topic. And each blogger engages their audience differently.

If you’re a blogger who would like to participate, go to the website and sign up. It’s easy and free. If you’re an educator, why not make this day a teachable moment? How about doing some research about poverty? Comparing numbers? Learning more about what poverty means in different countries? Training your lens on poverty in the United States?

If you’re a superintendent of schools, why not set a great example by participating in a food drive, working at a soup kitchen, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, or simply blogging about the issue?

Join us on Oct. 15, 2008.

Global Voices seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore. We work to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard.

With tens of millions of people blogging all over the planet, how do you avoid being overwhelmed by the information overload? How do you figure out who are the most influential or respected and credible bloggers or podcasters in any given country, especially those outside your own? Our international team of volunteer authors, regional blogger-editors and translators are your guides to the global blogosphere.

The result is a fascinating collection of blog posts from everywhere, providing you with more than just a sound-bite understanding of the cultural, political and societal issues facing individuals living in far-flung places around the world. While these posts highlight our differences, they also shine a lens on what we all have in common.

Check out Global Voices at your first opportunity, and use it as a learning tool.

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