Wednesday, December 29, 2010

2010 In Review

This will probably be my last post of the year as I work a full day tomorrow and Friday and Saturday are spoken for with other commitments. So, I’d like to take a moment to look back on my first full calendar year of blogging.

According to Blogger stats, I’ve had 6100 pageviews since May (about 871 pageviews a month) when the stats function came online. Of those, 2765 pageviews (45% of all pageviews) where directed at the 2010 Ford Focus SES review post from back in June. That’s almost as many pageviews for one post as for all other posts combined.

Including this post, I’ve put out 107 posts for the year. That’s an average of about 1 post every 3 and a half day. There are others out there that put out more content than I do; but, considering the demands on my life, I can’t complain. Also, my original goal when I started was about 100 posts a year. So, I feel pretty good about coming in more or less right on target.

I’ve gone from having only a few regular followers at the end of last year to having 18 officially listed followers and at least a few others who I know are out there but don’t show up in Blogger as followers for reasons that escape me. I know at least one of those folks is on WordPress, and it may be some stupid cyber tit for tat, I can’t play with your marbles thing going on. I also had an early commenter explain that some people don’t use the Blogger “follow” option instead favoring an alternative blog reader.

The content itself has been somewhat varied both in topic and quality. Hopefully I’ve made you think, laugh, groan, nod your head or some other reaction. I’m working on improving quality on my “serious” posts (those posts where I’m actually trying to put the time in to write something worthwhile). I still think I have a long way to go to reach my personal writing quality goals, but I think I’m making progress. Also, there have been some accusations of damaged computer equipment while reading some of my work allegedly caused by spewed beverages. I take no responsibility for this whatsoever. This is a read at your own risk blog. If you haven’t learned yet to set aside your beverages before reading snark infested blogs, you deserve to have your gear soaked.

Finally, after a little over a year and a quarter’s worth of blogging, I finally received my very first spammer comment today on the post just before this one. I knew that the comment moderation option would come in handy eventually. One of these days, someone is going to have to explain to me how spammers get the idea that their completely off topic comments are somehow going to get people to click on their virus infected links. Of course, having worked in insurance for long enough, I know that there are plenty of stupid people in the world and stupidity is compensable (and not always for the stupid person).

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the ride so far as much as I have. I think it was Spider Robinson who wrote that shared joy is increased and shared pain is diminished. I look forward to sharing another year of increased joy and diminished pain with you all. Be safe. See you all in 2011.

4 comments:

  1. Nice year-end wrap up :)
    I'm curious, how do you find out your "blogger stats?"

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  2. Brandon, welcome and thanks. The stats can be found on your blog's dashboard which should be the first thing that comes up when you log into blogger. The stats link is near the top on the right hand side in the "manage blogs" box. Right under your blog title, you should see a button for "new post". The stats link is to the far right of that line of links.

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  3. You've really only been posting a year and a half? Seems like I've been following you so much longer (but in a good way, not a bad way).

    For the record, I must be one of your "smarter" followers, for I put the beverages out of reach and swallow fully before reading your snark infested post :)

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  4. GunDiva, you have learned well. You gotta be careful when reading comments, too, though. I've sniped a few monitors and keyboards via comments on other peoples' posts.

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