Category Archives: Blogging

Seeing my blog through the ChatGPT lens (Memory)

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In the two-plus years I’ve been playing with ChatGPT one of the more interesting uses I’ve found is in analyzing the 6,400 posts on my blog (going back more than 20 years). I suspect the day is coming when an AI will be able to scan/read all of those posts. As an experiment, I picked one topic —memory— that I had posted on as far back as 2004. From several perspectives: neuroscience, philosophy, fiction, Eastern spiritual traditions.

ChatGPT concluded its analysis with the following:

It’s both a philosophical inquiry and a deeply personal theme — where your intellectual interests and life story fuse. These posts read almost like a personal anthology on memory — each entry a fragment in your ongoing effort to understand self, time, and what persists.

Artificial intelligence has taken one topic from my blog to a place I could have never imagined. A gestalt of this particular topic. A whole much greater than the parts. Again, ChatGPT:

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Google Search Console

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When I started this blog (23 years ago) I looked at traffic stats for a year or two but I never had more than a few hundred visits and, in time, I stopped paying attention. I submitted my url to Google so it could provide some data and  I still see a report once a month. But I never bothered to understand the numbers. I decided to see what ChatGPT could tell me about these reports.

1. Clicks (1.18K):
Roughly 1,180 people clicked through to your site from Google Search in April. That’s a solid number, especially for a personal blog. It suggests your content is not only discoverable but also compelling enough for users to want to visit.

2. Impressions (68.3K):
Your site showed up in Google search results 68,300 times. This indicates that your posts are being indexed and matched to a wide range of search queries. Even if users didn’t click, this visibility is valuable for name recognition and long-tail content discovery.

3. Pages with First Impressions (258):
Google estimates that 258 different pages on your site were seen in search results for the first time this month. That likely reflects continued crawling/indexing of your long archive—and possibly good SEO hygiene (internal linking, metadata, etc.).

Overall Impression:
That’s a healthy level of engagement for a blog that’s been publishing for decades. It suggests that your archive still has relevance, and people are discovering it. You might consider checking which pages are getting the most traction—could be a good prompt for future posts or curation.

1. “Older Than”

Clicks: 227
URL: https://www.smays.com/2017/07/older-than/
Interpretation: This piece clearly hits a nostalgic or reflective nerve. Either the title draws curiosity or it’s ranking well for age-related queries. If it’s got broader appeal (e.g., cultural references, humor, aging), consider linking to it from newer posts or expanding it into a series.

2. “The Jackpot Trilogy”

Clicks: 84
URL: https://www.smays.com/2024/09/the-jackpot-trilogy/
Interpretation: This one’s probably pulling in folks searching for William Gibson’s work. Given the niche audience for speculative fiction, 84 clicks is meaningful. Might be worth updating the post occasionally or adding related tags so it stays visible in Google’s index.

3. “Pygmies-Tarzan”

Clicks: 78
URL: https://www.smays.com/2008/04/pygmies-tarzan/
Interpretation: This is likely benefiting from long-tail searches involving vintage pop culture or obscure media. If it’s evergreen or quirky, it might be worth linking to similar posts—maybe even a sidebar collection titled “Strange Finds from the Vault.”

  • Your archive still works for you. Posts from 2008 and 2017 are pulling solid traffic.
  • These could act as “gateways” to deeper engagement if you interlink to related content or add a call to action at the end of each.
  • You might want to check the search queries associated with these clicks in Search Console. Could spark ideas for new posts or updated content.

Why all of the ChatGPT posts?

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Like all blogs, this one is about stuff I find interesting and/or important (IMHO). Blogging (336), Google (148), Books (493) and, more recently, AI (150). With ChatGPT as my favorite flavor.

When I started this blog in 2002, we were in the early days of what came to be known as Web 2.0 (PDF):

Web 2.0 refers to the evolution of the internet from static, read-only websites (Web 1.0) to a more interactive, dynamic, and user-driven environment. Unlike its predecessor, Web 2.0 emphasizes user-generated content, collaboration, and social interaction, fundamentally changing how people use and contribute to the web.

If you weren’t around for it, it’s difficult to appreciate the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. It was pretty exciting and the Internet was never the same again.

I think/hope we’ll look back at these early days of AI as the same sort of transformative leap forward. So all of these ChatGPT blog posts? Just me scribbling (copying and pasting) as fast as I can.

Organizing videos (categories and tags)

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I posted my first video to YouTube in February, 2006. Just a year after YouTube launched in 2005. (Yes, it was lame)

Since then I have embedded or linked to YouTube videos 713 times. That’s a lot, particularly if I wanted to see videos by category. For example, all videos on the topic of CONSCIOUSNESS. Or, all videos of my Land Rover. While I have a Land Rover category, many of those posts don’t include a video. The 6,400 posts here at smays.com are organized in 41 categories with 256 tags. 

While most of those 713 videos were created by someone else, I created 167 of them and 73 of them are YouTube selfies (me talking to the camera.)

Are you confused yet? It gets even more complicated. I created a category for videos not hosted on YouTube. These include .mp4, .mov, with a few Vimeo and TED Talk videos.

The goal here to make it easier to find videos by topic. Examples:

By combining categories and tags or tags and tags, I can make searches more specific.

Live blogging with ChatGPT

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Imagine a blog that was nothing more than ChatGPT threads. Posted in real time. (comments turned off) I have posted all or part of 50+ conversations with ChatGPT and have a “ChatGPT” tag.

ChatGPT: That’s an intriguing idea—your blog as a living record of AI-human interaction, continuously updated with ChatGPT threads. In a way, it would function like an evolving conversation, accessible to anyone curious about what it’s like to engage deeply with an AI.

If you took it further and posted every thread in real-time, it could almost feel like a public mind-meld—your thoughts, questions, and curiosities unfolding without filter or delay.

Would you envision structuring it in any particular way? Maybe a rolling feed with automatic timestamps? Or something more curated, with you deciding which threads make the cut?

Steve: Hmm. I think “In for a penny…” I’d go with a rolling feed. The world listening on our chats.

ChatGPT: That would be a bold and fascinating move—almost like an ongoing dialogue with the world eavesdropping. It’d be a mix of raw thought, curiosity, and AI interaction, all laid bare in real time. I imagine it could evolve into something like a living archive of your exploration of ideas, tech, and whatever else crosses your mind.

Would you automate the process—say, using an API or shortcut to instantly post each thread? Or would you copy and paste manually, maybe adding a quick preface or title before publishing? Either way, it’d be a unique experiment in transparency and digital thought-sharing.