The return of the visitor map!

I've been using counters for visits and pageviews for the last 20 years. I like quick information - but I also want indepth information.

A Quick Look - on the blog

For many years, I have used clustrmaps.com to provide a visual map in my side column of where visitors to my blog come from.

I've always been completely amazed that I can sit typing at home in East London and the words that get published on my blog get read by people living all over the world - literally on every continent (bar Antarctica).

However, very sadly Clustrmaps has died.

Hence I was very pleased today to find a product which seeks to replicate it. Indeed I think it might even be the same team with a different name as they seem to have the same ethos - which is one I like and very much approve of.

Map My Visitors was created by a small team — just three guys working together. We are passionate about making web analytics accessible to everyone. We understand that tracking website traffic is essential for businesses, bloggers, and individuals, but the cost and complexity of existing solutions can be extremely overwhelming. That's why we set out on a mission to create a hit counter service that is not only accurate, fast, and responsive but also user-friendly and affordable.

You can find out more about them and what they do here.

Introducing MapMyVistors

MapMyVisitors

MapMyVisitors has a real time visitor map widget - and produces 

• either a map of where all your visitors come from (unless they are blocking their location)
• or a Globe widget (which moves!) I'm not a fan of things which move!

Visitors are either a red dot ie past visitors) or an amber or green dot ie visited recently

You can see the map near the top of the right hand side column.

Today - with just a few hours of stats on it, it looks like this

ON MY BLOG - as a widget

MapMyVisitors Widget
This is an enlarged version of the widget in the side column
after a few hours (i.e. installed on 19th August)

ON MY DASHBOARD

MapMyVisitors: This is the map on my screen re the dashboard.
Below it lists all the various locations

Statcounter

I cannot remember when I first started using Statcounter - but my stats suggest it must have been nearly 20 years ago.

I also use Statcounter to provide an incredibly detailed map - which allows me to drill down to region and city and ISP - and allowed me to identify I was being absolutely hammered by visits from people in South East Asia earlier this year when my stats went totally wild for two weeks.

This is today's map for the last 7 days

Statcounter: Visitor Map for the last 7 days
- with lots of the countries labelled

HOWEVER they don't have a nice widget sized one for my blog which I can look at really easily - hence my use of MapMyVisitors

Making A Mark still in Top 10 Art Blogs

I recently found out that Making A Mark is still in the top 10 of a list of art blogs from all over the world

Specifically they are #5 in the 60 Best UK Art Blogs and#10 in the 100 Top Art Blogs according to Feedspot. 

Not quite sure how they work out the rankings either and not quite sure how this happened but I'm happy that it did. 

Although I was #5 in the Vuelio's Art Blogs UK Top 10 in 2022

60 Best UK Art Blogs - according to Feedspot

The best UK Art blogs curated and ranked based on multiple factors, including content relevancy, subject expertise, posting frequency, and freshness of content. Blogs with highest credibility within the UK Art space are ranked higher. This list is updated regularly to ensure it reflects the most active, influential, and valuable UK Art blogs on the internet today.

In the 60 Best UK Art Blogs to Follow in 2026, Making A Mark ranks 5th!

5. Making a Mark

+ Follow Blog
Description A top art blog for artists and art lovers: news about major art competitions and exhibitions, interviews with artists, techniques and tips for art and business
Email ****@gmail.com
Location London, England, United Kingdom
Facebook 12.5KTwitter 3K Domain Authority 46

100 Best Art Blogs- according to Feedspot

The same principles apply in relation to how different sites rank within the 100 Best Art Blogs to Follow in 2026 - where Making A Mark is ranked 10th.

10. Making a Mark 

+ Follow Blog
Description A top art blog for artists and art lovers: news about major art competitions and exhibitions, interviews with artists, techniques and tips for art and business
Email ****@gmail.com
Facebook 12.5KTwitter 3K Domain Authority 46

This is despite a reduced level of posting in recent times due to the facts that:

• I got to 70 and decided if I was ever to retire I needed to make more time for me. This is despite the fact I took early retirement (knowing that severe osteoarthritis was a racing certainty for me) back in 2005 and started this blog a few months later
• I now need to walk a decent amount every single day to stop me from seizing up. I average between 5,000-6,000 steps
• Periodically I have to get ready for and recover from surgery. Like I said I always knew osteoarthritis was in my future. I didn't quite factor in the time needed for surgery!
• Not to mention other health hiccups. I was told I need an urgent MRI this morning! They're going to see if they can fit it in before surgery next month.

Although I do fewer posts now I do seem to get better audiences for the ones I do.

For the record, other art blogs "from the old days" also ranked as follows in all Art Blogs

1. Artsy

3. ARTnews

13. Artwork Archive Blog

14. Jackson's Art Blog

16. Artnet

23. Lines and Colors

24. Parka Blogs

26. Gurney Journey

38. Art Biz Blog

39. Art Marketing News Blog

40. Xanadu Gallery - Red Dot Blog

41. Artsy Shark

Note: I do find these inventories of blogs to be very useful. If you look at the Feedspot Instagram, you can see all the other categories which are ranked.

RECOMMENDED: Duane Keiser on AI and Painting

This is about Duane Keiser and his recent writing about AI and Painting - and provides the first real insight I've read into the issues and problems with reproducing art using AI.

Two recent innovations in the realm of art are NFTs and AI - except that neither are art: Put simplistically:

• NFTs are digital tokens (akin to currency NOT art!) - see my blog post last year about What is art? (legally speaking)
• AI stands for Artificial Intelligence which is a machine learning way of creating "more of the same" using machine algorithms. (An algorithm is a procedure used for solving a problem or performing a computation).
  

The art market seems to think AI and NFTs are the way forward for lots of people to make lots of money.

Duane Keiser on AI

Duane Keiser has been writing recently on his blog about the advent of AI and whether it is a serious rival to painting 'for real'. 

It's the result of doing some serious research.

Over the last few months, I've been researching and experimenting with AI to better understand it (I gained early access to the more well-known AIs). In my next few articles, I'll be writing about what I've learned about AI as it relates to art and painting, and where it might be going.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND a read of his blog posts if you want to grasp what AI and art is and what problems it encounters. It's a well structured series which introduces the notions of AI and where it comes from and then presents a series of experiments he has conducted in AI.

I've extracted short quotes from each to demonstrate what they are about as I know the whole concept of AI will be very new to most of you.

To read his blog posts just right click the titles and open in a new tab.

• pAInting 

As I read some of the reactions to AI, I'm reminded of what the French painter Paul Delaroche said in the 1800s upon seeing one of the first photographs: "From today, painting is dead."

• ChatGPT

It feels like AI developers have gone from pen and ink, to the Gutenberg Press, to the internet in a matter of weeks. The advancements are hard to keep up with, much less fully understand. In terms of tech revolutions, I’ve never seen anything like it. Not even close.

Before I get to my experiences with image-based AI, I thought it would be helpful to start with an introduction to text-based AI, specifically ChatGPT.

• The Woman in the White Dress - in which Duane reveals his experiments with AI and the images and results he (and AI) generated. I was absolutely riveted by this read and recommended it on FB straight away - and found that others were also very interested in what he had to say

The AI is not just a craftsman who dutifully follows orders. It is a collaborator in the true sense of the word— it makes conceptual contributions to your project (whether you like them or not.) The output always comes with surprises. In other words, the AI cannot be corralled into recreating the exact image you have in your head. This, as you may have already discovered, can feel like herding cats.

Duane Keiser on AI - The Woman in the White Dress

Then it got really interesting....