It begin last week, I think got a little bit funky last week or perhap techie. I decided to put a virtual avatar at my blog, Streamxy.com.

In fact actually it's a choice between, what should go first or what should I try first.

I had landed at Oddcast, formely known as SitePal. Oddcast provide a good handfull of virtual avatar, from free to premium. At premium, you can even get a virtual you

Now, another consideration is to introduce a totally free conference call.

Playstream, provide similar service to Oddcast but the streaming more on video not a virtual avatar. But after several consideration, I think I want to try oddcast first

It took me a while to learn how to use the application. The personalisation of the avatar can be very complicated. From face expression, shape, age, outfits, almost every aspect can be customise.I can't imagine if I go premium, how far more the customisation can be done.

What a beatiful avatar I must say, don't you agree. I choose a woman avatar so I can test my blog acceptance. The avatar eye movement will follow my cursor movement. It speak according to default text. If premier account, you can input youw own voice and text. I decided to test the application for free first instead of paying a montly $9.90.

Now, everytime when people landed on my blog, my avatar will greet them. Cool. but I had made a double kill. The application run as pop-up, with option to resize and to close or minimize the window. wait make it tripple killer.

Shortly I notice from my google analytic, my traffic drop significantly, someday I only received between 3 to 4 only. Initially I thought it's temporary. But the problem continues almost 3-4 days.

I went to my blog, Streamxy.com only to find out that I can access my blog. This had cause my bounce rate jump significantly and average time spent also decrease. I decided to disable the application and see the effect.

From the screen capture image you see that, the traffic start to increase again to normal daily rate. I used the web spider simulation, it's appear that a bot can read pop-up. It's return blank.

Lesson Learn

It's appear that Google and Yahoo were not in favor of pop-ups. Using pop-up in a website or for the purpose of marketing is not advisable. Pop-up had been treated as annoyance not just by the normal visitor but also by spider bot.