Zooming out on 2010.
I started this blog in December of 2009, so I’ve just completed my first full year of blogging (or, as I prefer to think of it, writing and self-publishing essays). I prefer “essayist” over “blogger” not out of pretension, but because I think it more accurately describes what I’ve been doing; writing about specific topics that I find interesting, in a way that I hope will be interesting, entertaining, and/or useful to others. Not much personal, day to day stuff. No recipes. There’s nothing wrong with that style of blog, it’s just not for me.
So far this site has had about 30,000 unique views. That’s not a lot, but it’s much more than the “just family and friends” traffic that I expected. It’s gratifying to know that a wide range of people have enjoyed reading at least some of my posts. So, thank you readers!
The biggest traffic day was about 4,000 views, from a link someone posted on reddit.com.
I don’t make any money from blogging, nor do I expect to. I pay WordPress a small amount to host the site, and small additional fees to display the URL as jdmoyer.com (without “wordpress” in the URL) and to suppress advertising (which is how WordPress makes money from the blogs it hosts). I’m happy to pay these fees so I don’t have to deal with the technical hassles of blog hosting, comment management, etc. The hosted WordPress tools are great.
Haven't written about this yet, but I will.
Why do I it? Since I started this site, my mind has been overflowing with ideas for new essays and posts. I have a spreadsheet going with ideas for about fifty entries … some of which I’ll probably never get to. I don’t know how long this particular vein of abundant inspiration will continue, but I’m enjoying the ride while it lasts.
The world “outlet” comes to mind. Not so much creative outlet, but rather persuasive outlet. I can try to convince others that my opinion is worth paying attention to, without cornering them at a party and lecturing their ear off. Readers can stop reading whenever they want, without any social awkwardness. They (you) can freely lurk, or comment.
It’s interesting to watch the stats and see which posts people find interesting. Some topics that interest me greatly don’t seem to interest other people much at all (or the people who might be interested haven’t yet found this site), and some posts that I wrote quickly and without much thought have been read many times. For what it’s worth, here are the top five posts (out of about sixty) of 2010 (by number of views).
1. Sleep Experiment – A Month With No Artificial Light
(candle wax, bimodal sleep, feeling unreasonably happy)
2. How I Cured My Asthma With One Simple Lifestyle Change
(a diet change turned around my health and fixed my breathing problems)
3. Minecraft — It’s in Your Head
(a low-res videogame that took over my life for awhile)
4. A Meta-analysis of Kooky Diets, Part III — PALEO!
(3 very fit guys telling you why you’re better off without grains)
5. The Singularity Already Happened – Part I
(my thoughts on the nerd rapture)
Or maybe it happened thousands of years ago?
scott
Well excellent write up keep on blogging… opps I mean essaying you seem like a pro essayist if I have ever read one. Thanks for the inner insights J.D. 🙂