Check it out and be amazed.

What we've got here is a running view of the hits the members of the Blogging Tories are getting. In other words, we see what seems to be of interest to our readers.

It's more than just a toy. It provides a real-time dynamic view of the community in contrast to the temporally static view provided by the newsfeed on the home page. Here's what I mean. I do most of my blogging at night. The kids wake me up and after settlign them down, I spend an hour checking out stories and writing up stuff. This is an exception -- I'm on my break. Now if I post everything at once, my postings will disappear in the lower reaches of the newsfeed by virture of the fact that a rush of morning posts from other Blogging Tories will push me down. So I tend to hold off and post already written stories over the course of the day just to keep things fresh.

The Spy is different. Instead of bubbling up to the top of the list based on the behaviour of the author, as with the newsfeed, you bubble up to the top based on the behaviour of the reader. When someone checks your post, the Spy adds that to the dynamic scroll. Now I don't have to alter my posting schedule to conform to the static characteristics of the newsfeed. The Spy doesn't reward me for posting through the day, or penalize me for posting three posts in succession at three in the morning. Instead, the Spy rewards me for having readership.

If there is one thing to criticize is that the Spy doesn't help those with lower readerships. But then the newsfeed has not disappeared, and it is still the first thing people see when they go to the website. My links to the Blogging Tories will go to the newsfeed and not to the Spy. If you are looking to build readership, keep your posts fresh and depend on the newsfeed. Once you get traffic coming to your blog throughout the day, the Spy will become your friend.

A hearty "Well done!" to Stephen Taylor and Craig Smith.