Over the last year, a lot of folks have shared suggestions for the next iteration of LeftyBlogs - and I want to tell you that those ideas are actually going to be implemented.

At Mandate Media, we've just added a kick-ass programmer to our team - and he's pulling some long hours re-engineering LeftyBlogs from the ground up.

The new LeftyBlogs will be faster, more stable, more transparent, and more customizable. Blog owners will be able to view the current "health" of their feed - and see how long ago they were indexed. And all LeftyBlogs readers will be able to search LeftyBlogs for specific keywords - and even make those searches "live" and auto-updating. Readers will also be able to "bookmark" particular posts and save them to a page of past favorites.

But we're not just interested in telling you what's going to be in the new LeftyBlogs.

You tell us. What do you want to see?

Dream big. We've got a powerful and robust river of blogginess flowing through here -- what should we do with it? What would make your life easier and more interesting - either as a blog reader or a blog publisher?

The solution is simple: Just resubmit your new RSS feed.

Our earlier solution was a one-time deal: If you were on old Blogger and moved to beta Blogger, we fixed you right up. But if you've joined LeftyBlogs.com since then, with your old Atom feed, then we don't have your new one. (Why would we? You told us the right feed... but now you've changed it!)

So, just resubmit with your RSS feed (not the Atom feed) - and we'll get you fixed right up.

(But be patient. We're reviewing new feeds all the time, but the backlog is huge -- takes about a week. Here's to being popular!)

I have a blog post today that, on Lefty Blogs, says it's had 65 clicks. Now, I use Sitemeter to measure hits etc. I'm not incredibly sophisticated with this stuff, but my visits on Sitemeter definitely don't reflect 65 clicks from Lefty Blogs.

So, how does this happen?

First, understand the different kinds of stats on your website. The most basic are "hits" - which is a count of the number of times a file is downloaded on your site.

Another stat is "pageviews" - which is a count of the number of times an HTML document is downloaded. (Hits, you see, includes all the graphics and other stuff. One pageview could be 10-20 hits.)

And the final major stat that people talk about is "visits" or "unique visits". This one is an attempt to understand how many actual people are visiting your site. Usually a single visit is series of pageviews from a single IP address in a short period of time (30, 60, 90 minutes...)

But here's where it gets crazy. For starters, a single IP address might represent multiple computers in a corporate suite, dorm hallway, or even a neighborhood. Or, one computer on a dialup connection might appear to be multiple IP addresses -- even in the space of 30 minutes.

So, while some people use "visits" as the closest approximation to the number of people that visit a site -- well, it's just not a very good stat.

And it gets worse: Many browsers - and some internet providers - "cache" web pages. In other words, once it's viewed once, it's stored locally on the computer (or at an ISP, on a local router) so that it can be served from there -- without ever bothering the originating web server.... which means, that the pageview never registers.

The "clicks" meter on LeftyBlogs.com is merely a click-thru counter. When someone clicks a link, it counts 'em - and then passes them off to your blog. If their browser or ISP is serving up a cached version, we'll count the click - but you won't see the pageview.

And finally: All of the above is true if you have direct access to the stats or logfiles on your webserver. If you're using a third-party stat-counter (like SiteMeter), the possible permutations multiply.

Trying to simplify things, consider this: While you may not be able to compare one set of stats to another (apples, oranges, etc.) it's relatively valid to evaluate one metric over time... if your SiteMeter shows your traffic moving up, it's probably moving up.

Here's the deal: Blogger Beta has some kind of funky new format for the Atom.xml - and I can't get my reader to read it. But, have no fear, their RSS format is perfectly readable.

So, life is good.

Of course, regular ol' Blogger doesn't produce the new-fangled RSS feed (but has the ol' Atom feed that's fine) -- but there's no way to differentiate one from the other without actually reading the files. So, for now, we're attempting to read an old Atom and a new RSS for each BlogSpot blog.

That's a big bandwidth hit, and in slightly annoying fashion, every Blogger blog is now listed twice on their state's blogroll.

Now that this long-running crisis is finally fixed, we're going redouble our efforts to re-engineer LeftyBlogs.com from the ground up.

If you are - or know someone who is - a pro at coding in Perl, working with RSS, and managing massive amounts of data... well, this would be one heckuva satisfying volunteer job. I'd sing your praises from the highest mountaintops (and be a fantastic job reference.) So, if you're out there, drop me a line. If not, I'll keep plugging away in the wee hours.

But Blogger does one terrible disservice to the world. If you delete your blog, the username for your blog immediately becomes available for anyone to grab.

So there are spammers that lie in wait, trolling for blog usernames that have been abandoned. Those spammers then dump spam into their RSS feeds - flooding LeftyBlogs with their crap.

So, if you see a blog that's suddenly spewing spam - post it here. Be sure to include what state it's in. And we'll get rid of it pronto.

And if you know anyone that works at Google/Blogger, let 'em know about this. There's an easy fix -- just disable those usernames for a year or more. (Users will stop downloading the RSS, aggregator sites will turn 'em off, and the Google Rank will fade. The incentive for spammers will disappear.)

After several attempts to fix it, we're happy to announce that the problem is truly solved. We found the bug and we squashed it.

I won't bore you with the details, but the cause was a "feature" we built in to prevent the system from crashing -- and it was outdoing itself.

Now, is it possible that a single blog might not update right away? Yes, and that's typically not a bug. If an RSS feed takes more than about 10 seconds to download, we put it on the "slowpokes" list - and we'll wait six hours before trying to update again. So, if your server's connection is jammed - or your blog is generating the RSS feed dynamically - you might be one of the handful of blogs that lives semi-permanently on the slowpokes list.

Of course, if your blog hasn't updated in days, then it's almost certain that your RSS feed is broken. Use feedvalidator.org to check your feed. Almost always, fixing your feed will fix your problem.

They're asking us to switch their feeds to a new URL.

We're going to hold off fow now. So far, the old RSS feeds seem to be updating just fine. Not only that, but since the new RSS feeds include "beta" in the URL, we're assuming that they're going to change when they complete the beta test.

Presumably, Blogger is smart enough to load up the new feeds at the old URL (username.blogspot.com/atom.xml) in order to protect all their members.

Anybody have information that suggests this doesn't make sense?

Update: The Beta Blogger feed problem is now fixed.

We're working on it. Just more evidence that we really need to re-engineer this bad boy from the ground up.

I was interviewed about LeftyBlogs.com and what it would mean if we no longer had net neutrality:

Kari Chisholm, one of the creators of the Blue Oregon blog popular with progressives, was also quick to point out the hardships the bill creates for the "tiny Internet start-ups, and the open-source community" in Portland.

Chisholm says the threat to net neutrality "is no big deal for the basic Web page" consisting mostly of print, as many blogs do.

But there are new places online "where people find out what's going on locally and nationally," he says. Sites such as leftyblogs.com feature engines that "go out and read 2,000 blogs every hour, and present their findings organized by state." That requires a lot of bandwidth, and Chisholm fears for the future of these outlets. "If the bad guys want to charge extra for high-bandwidth operations," he says, "this service will become unsustainable."

If you want to help fight the fight, there are two things you can do:

First, blog about it. This can be a difficult, technical issue - but it's really important. Help raise the awareness of your readers. Together, all of us have millions of readers every day.

Second, send your readers to SaveTheInternet.org and MoveOn's action site.

Let's do this.

Deploying the BlogWire costs us a lot of bandwidth - after all, it's displayed over 300,000 times each week. So, to defray expenses (and help change the world), we've added a small but powerful little advertisement to the BlogWire.

Ads run nationwide on an exclusive basis - and for a maximum run of three weeks. They're available only to "lefty" campaigns, causes, and blogs that will be of interest to our thousands of readers.

Cost: We're starting with an introductory rate of just $100/week. That's around 33 cents per thousand impressions. Not bad.

Specs: The image is 80px wide and 40px tall. You've got up to 110 characters of visible text, plus a link - which can be anywhere in that text. Italics and bold are also fine, but no linebreaks.

Contact Kari Chisholm at Mandate Media to get started.

Want to see the BlogWire in action? Here's a handful of the 300+ blogs around the country: Raising Kaine (VA), Burnt Orange Report (TX), RI Future, California Progress Report, BlueOregon, Left in the West (MT), Michigan Liberal, MN Publius, Connecticut Blog, Young Philly Politics, Left in Lowell (MA), Calitics (CA).

(If you're looking for traditional BlogAd advertising on the LeftyBlogs.com site itself, buy a BlogAd here.)

On the one hand, we've had positive feedback - DailyKos is a huge site and getting a feed of just one state's content can be a tremendous reader service.

On the other hand, we've had some negative feedback - DailyKos is a monster site that generates lots of content, and sometimes posts get mis-tagged or over-tagged. There's some concern that DailyKos posts have overwhelmed things.

So, here's the research we did on our June traffic. We looked at four states - three with ongoing national interest, and one without.

• In Connecticut, there are 14 blogs - and DailyKos ranked #7 in number of posts. Kos contributors produced 39 posts, out of 689 total - that's 6%.

• In Montana, there are 16 blogs - and DailyKos ranked #5 in number of posts. Kos contributors produced 45 posts, out of 544 total - that's 8%.

• In Ohio, there are 51 blogs - and DailyKos ranked #8 in number of posts. Kos contributors produced 67 posts, out of 2094 total - that's 3%.

• In Utah, there are 8 blogs - and DailyKos ranked #6 in number of posts. Kos contributors produced 8 posts, out of 170 total - that's 5%.

We're going to keep paying attention to how the DailyKos volume holds up. For now, it certainly doesn't seem like Kos contributors are overwhelming either our high-volume or low-volume states.

We haven't researched the click-thru traffic yet, but it looks to be a reasonable amount -- which suggests that readers are finding the Kos feeds useful.

I just got back home from two weeks in Italy. Great wine, great food, great art, great cities.

But now there are over 100 blogs awaiting approval for inclusion in LeftyBlogs.

As you know, every blog is manually approved - so it's going to take some time. We're still a one-person all-volunteer labor of love. Hang in there.

Thanks for understanding....

For example, the biggest of the big: DailyKos.com.

On the one hand, given how difficult it can be to track things at Kos, I've heard from a number of folks that are thankful that LeftyBlogs now includes state-specific stuff in our feeds. If you care about Montana, for example, it can be useful that we've got all the Montana-related stuff from DailyKos on our Montana page.

On the other hand, it's true that Kos generates a LOT of content - and that can drown out local blogs. (Do keep in mind that the blogwire, if you have it on your blog only lists the most recent three items from a blog - even if there's a kazillion.)

So, talk to me.

Is including state-specific content from national blogs a good idea or a bad idea? Are all those national blogs a problem, or just DailyKos? Are you finding this stuff useful? Or not?

Your comments are much appreciated. We're going to listen for a couple of weeks, see how things go, and then figure out what we're going to do. Thanks!

Well, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about the fact that Blogger.com is having a bunch of network trouble today. Just keep on trying.

Well, with a little template magic, WD now has state-specific RSS feeds -- and they've all been added to the appropriate states inside LeftyBlogs.com.

If you've got a national blog that categorizes content by state, and can produce state-specific RSS feeds - we'll be happy to add the appropriate feeds to the appropriate sections of LeftyBlogs.com.

Either submit 'em using our handy form -- or submit a comment here, and we'll get in touch about adding them in bulk.