The best way to measure the influence of any blogger is readership (traffic). Thanks to companies like Feedburner and Alexa, we can measure readership statistics and trends. In fact, displaying RSS and traffic rank stats in a visible place on a blog is one of the best ways to advertise (and measure) the popularity of a site. Some might even argue that it’s a marketing technique that turns a popular blog into a REALLY popular blog overnight, as visitors subscribe in droves just to see what all the fuss is about. I have to admit that I find it totally fascinating in the geekiest possible way that a single person/blogger can develop a readership in the tens of thousands a DAY. Can you imagine 50 to 100 thousand people getting an email or a feed every single time you posted a thought or an idea? It’s difficult, if not impossible, to picture that many people in one physical space paying attention to one person. To put it in perspective, it’s the equivalent of an entire football stadium listening to one person sing the national anthem. Considering that the most popular blogs are posting daily, some of them multiple times a day, the “who’s-paying-attention” figures can be staggering.