In which the author becomes a geek temporarily

anything but ordinary site (which is charmingly designed, I suggest) points me to VisitorVille.

If you are one of the vast population who doesn't give a monkey's about how many people have viewed a website, you won't have spent any time crawling though table and table of numbers. This looks a lot more fun. As in The Sims you are building a world populated by little antlike characters. Unlike The Sims, these represent 'real' visitors.

More from anything but ordinary:

Basically, it's Sim-type Stats for your website. Here's their rundown:

See your website visitors as animated characters in a virtual city
Watch visitors move from page to page and interact with your site
See buses (search engines) deliver new visitors to buildings
Pull up detailed 'Passports' on any visitor
Replay website traffic from any date or time
View dozens of professional reports in an instant
Provide Live Help

It could prove daunting for your average blogger, plugging away at their keypad day after day, effectively erecting empty building after empty building. However, for the more successful, the temptation to become a voyeur in this world invisible to visitors could become enormous. Just think how megamaniacal you could become, testing to see if specific visitors do what you expect them to do, manipulating them around your blog.

Thankfully, it costs money, so that will deter some potential web despots, at least for a while.