Why we blog. September 6, 2008
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: blog stats, blogging
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Our friend Ben, Silence Dogood, and Richard Saunders (the original Poor Richard of Poor Richard’s Almanac) began our blog, Poor Richard’s Almanac, in February of this year, 2008. Our friend and blog mentor Nancy Ondra, whose wonderful gardening blog, Hayefield, is on our blogroll at right (we urge you to check it out!), suggested that we should start our own blog. Knowing our Luddite tendencies, she even offered to help us get started. Little did she know that she was creating a monster!
Seven months later, WordPress, our blog’s home, told us this morning that we’ve now had more than 30,000 visits (30,020, but who’s counting?!). Our SiteMeter, the one you can see, shows far fewer, but that’s because we’re such Luddites we don’t know how to put up anything on our site, so we had to ask Nan to put it up for us, and we didn’t think to do it until a couple of months after we’d started posting.
Everything’s relative, and to many people, 30,000 visits sounds like nothing. A friend recently leant Silence a book called Half Assed, based on Jennette Fulda’s weight-loss blog, Half of Me. Silence reported glumly that, in a chapter on her blog, Jennette mentioned getting 1,000 visits a day. And our friend Ben recently read a piece on the “Or Die” internet franchise (as in Funny or Die), which had killed an offshoot because it was only getting 70-80,000 unique visits a day. Well, alrighty then. But to us, 30,000 sounds like a good, round number. We want to celebrate!
Richard joined us at breakfast this morning at our little cottage, Hawk’s Haven, in the precise middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, to enjoy one of Silence’s superb breakfasts and to share in the celebration (while, of course, being browbeaten by Silence to write his annual post on the Bowers Chile Pepper Food Festival in nearby Bowers, PA). We’d all bought some new salsas and hot sauces at the festival, so Silence had made her own version of Heuvos Rancheros with refried beans and soft tortillas, and we were having what I call “Morning Margaritas” (made with orange juice, of course) as part of our celebratory brunch.
Raising my glass for attention (or a possible refill), our friend Ben asked Silence and Richard why we blogged. The answer, for all of us, was immediate: because it’s fun. We enjoy blogging. We love blogging. It’s also good discipline, since we blog at least once a day, and good writing practice, too. Since Silence and our friend Ben are freelance writers and editors, and Richard’s a journalism professor, it’s in all our best interests to keep our writing skills sharp. But there’s more to it than that.
If it were just about the writing, we could all write our little essays and save them to our Word archives. What makes blogging fun is the interaction, the response we get to our blog posts. What makes blogging fun, what inspires us, is you.
When we first started Poor Richard’s Almanac, we had no idea what kind of response we’d get. Would people send us hateful, derisive, sarcastic comments, telling us in a barrage of four-letter words what pathetic morons we were? This was the internet, after all. But that has never happened. Not once. We have never had to delete a comment from our site. (WordPress deserves a lot of credit for this, since its Akismet spam filter takes out all the insurance and gambling stuff and unrelated pingbacks we’re sent. But that’s all impersonal. We’ve never suffered a personal attack from any commentator.) Of course, every now and then people take exception to our views. But they do so in a civil, thoughtful manner, and we appreciate their taking the time to help us reevaluate our positions, whether we ultimately return to them or change them.
We have also been awed by the international community that has stopped by to read Poor Richard’s Almanac. Every day, we see readers from across the U.S. and the world. In a single day, Silence pointed out that we’d had visits from folks in Marseilles; Halifax and Calgary, Canada; Buenos Aires; Kota Kinabalu, Petaling Jaya, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; London; Melbourne and Perth; Bombay and Indore; Varberg, Sweden; Otterfing, Germany; Tehran; and, among many U.S. visitors, the classic cities of Meddybemps, Maine and Twentynine Palms, California. Woo-hoo!!!
So, to all of you who have taken some of your time to stop by and read our posts, thank you. To those of you who have chosen to comment, bless you. We feel that we’ve grown to know—and love—many of you through your comments here and through your own blogs. You have enriched our lives and our blogging experience. Of course, you’re also to blame for encouraging us.
We’ve done enough back-patting for now. We’re not even going to tell you when we hit 40,000 visits. But when we reach 50,000, we’re throwing a party and you’re all invited. We’ll have games and quizzes (thanks to Richard), party recipes (from Silence), and… uh…
Silence (reading over our friend Ben’s shoulder and breaking in): Pontificating?!
OFB: Um, I’ll think of something to contribute by then.
Silence: Sure you will.
OFB: GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
Silence: Have another Morning Margarita, Ben!
Thank you all for giving us so much here at Poor Richard’s Almanac. Thank you for putting up with Silence. (Ouch! Ouch!!! Just kidding, Silence!!!) Thank you for encouraging us to carry on. Please let us know if there’s anything you’d like us to add to our 50,000th visitor celebration. (Hopefully, coming soon to a blog near you. And we’re already fantasizing about what we’ll do for the 100,000th!!!) And if there’s a reason why you blog that we haven’t mentioned—such as drawing far-flung family members closer—please let us know!
Congratulations on the 30,020+ visitors to your blog. I’d be celebrating too!
I have to say that your blog contains the best writing that I have seen on the Internet in ages, perhaps ever. Insightful, witty, touching, and welcoming, it reaches out, almost compelling one to read on. (And, the fact that the writing is impeccably correct and doesn’t maul the English language doesn’t hurt either!).
Looking forward to the 100,000th visitor celebrations!
/krys
Ohmigod, Krys, we’re overwhelmed now! We want to print your comment out and frame it! (And, of course, send copies to publishers when we’re pitching our latest book ideas!) Thank you so much!!!
This is an interesting blog! I hope I could read more from you.
Thank you, Den!
Congratulations to all!! The Shibaguyz raise a glass of prosecco to you on this fine morning… *clink* Oh… the Shibaboyz raise a paw as well. Again, congratulations and we’re looking forward to more wonderfully witty wonders from your corner of the universe.
Thanks, guyz (and boyz)! Pass the prosecco, please…
I love to hear why people blog. I too wrote a post about it a couple of weeks ago. That your arm was twisted to get you to start is funny. Especially since you have such a wonderful blog. I raise my glass to both you and Nancy.
Thanks, Daphne!!!
Congratulations! 30,000 is nothing to sneeze at, I don’t care what some half ass says!
I’ve only been a member of blotanical for 1 month, but already I have learned so many things. I like to think that every time I publish a post, I am sharing one small drop of information that becomes part of the frothing mass of the garden blogosphere. I has better watch my grammar and spelling.
Ha!!! Thanks, Lzyjo! It’s been a lot of fun!
I always feel…satisfied, when I’ve visited your blog.
Kudos to you on your milestone and I look forward to your future posts!
Thank you, Nancy! What a wonderful compliment. Getting comments like yours makes us feel satisfied, too!
I remember the first post I read of yours. It was about the broken gazing ball in the garden. It’s been fun ever since. Thank you for keeping them coming, and a big CONGRATULATIONS to all three of you.
Thanks, Barbee’! We love your posts, too, even if the wretched visual verification icon doesn’t show for us most of the time so we can’t post any responses. (It’s not your blog; this happens to us with most blogs that have visual verification, those conglomerated letters you have to unscramble to be allowed to post. For some reason, all we see is a little box in the upper left-hand corner with an “X” in it. Sigh.) It especially kills us when we see a fantastic post like the one you wrote about your lounge chair frame and we’re just desperate to comment. I think we tried seven different times on that one and got the evil X every time!
Geez, I’ve got nowhere near the traffic you’ve got. Thanks okay though, I just like to chat with my cyber buddies. I’ve got something OFB could contribute.. socks! (Ducking from imagined punch) Sorry, I just couldn’t resist!
AAAAHHHH!!! Not socks! Not socks!!!! Anything but socks! But in the sock department, it’s definitely better to give than to receive…
Oh. Um. Did you want hateful, derisive, sarcastic comments, telling you in a barrage of four-letter words what pathetic morons you are? ‘Cause I know some people.
But seriously. Congratulations. It may or may not interest you to know that the longer you keep at it, the faster the hits start coming in: PATSP got roughly the same number of hits from 18 Oct 2007 to 8 Jun 2008 (235 days) as it did from 9 Jun 2008 to 6 Sep 2008 (90 days). So it’ll only get faster from here.
Thanks for the encouragement, Mr.S.! And I hope you’re right. But that may be more a tribute to your posts than a truism of blogging! As for those friends of yours, um, you can keep ‘em…
I don’t comment enough here – just lounge around lurking most of the time, enjoying your writing. But this time I have to say congratulations and I’m looking forward to the major party for your 50,000th! I’m just getting towards 20,000 myself, so I understand your excitement.
As for your comment problem – are you doing this within Blotanical? I get that all the time when viewing via the Pick List. Going into the blog directly cures the problem for me. Just a thought.
So on a rainy Sunday here in England – here’s to you. Cheers!
Thanks, VP! And we love comments, but lurking works for us! Congrats on your upcoming 20,000. We were so excited when we hit 20,000 we almost burst. Enjoy it! And we’ll look forward to your 50,000 celebration as well! And thanks for the tip. We’ll try the direct route and see if it helps!
Congrats on your milestone! Blogging is a fun way to see what others think about what you think. You have an interesting blog, I should visit and comment more often!
Thanks, Dave! And yes, we’d love it if you stopped by more often and let us know your thoughts!
Wow! 30,000 hits is awesome! Newbie blogger here visiting your site for the first time and sending congratulations your way! I will be sure to save your blog and visit it often, it appears that you have many fans
.
Have a great day~
Karrita
Thank you, Karrita, and welcome! Please come back soon!
Congratulations to you all. I very much enjoy reading your blog. It goes well with my morning coffee.
Thanks, CeeCee! As you know, we very much enjoy writing it!
Congrats! Blogging is a great way to feel the community of the whole world of gardeners. I’m getting lazy about it myself; ever since I discovered Twitter I find that my need for social interaction online is mostly satisfied there. I still read many garden blogs through my RSS reader but I find that I’m writing less posts and leaving less comments.
It will be interesting to see how the dynamic between my blog life and my Twitter life will play out in the long run.
Hi MSS! I’m so happy to hear from you, and to learn why your posts have been turning up so infrequently in my favorites list of late. I know Kate of Kate smudges… has been spending her time on Twitter and Flickr rather than posting to her blog as well, so it must be addictive! I haven’t investigated Twitter yet, but I’m assuming it’s more of a real-time commentary. Guess I’d better go check it out!
Congrats on your well deserved milestone! I look forward to your party for the 50,000th comment as well:).Cheers!
Thanks, Chey! And the same to you!
Eh, the giganto numbers are for the bean counters, and it’s good to be happy with whatever you get -30,000 seems like a lot to me, baby blogger that I am (1 mo. and 1 day). I agree that the rigors of writing daily are good for the brain, and the sharing with others aspect is helpful to the heart and the soul. Keep up the good work, and I’m sure you’ll be at 50,000 before you know it!
- Karen
http://greenwalks.wordpress.com
Words to the wise, Karen. Thanks!
Congratulations, gang! I may not comment often, but I must say that your posts usually give me food for thought. Thanks for taking a stand, regardless of how unpopular that might be. For the 50,000 post, I’d love to see a photo of all of you dressed up as garden gnomes. Of course, I’m slightly eccentric.
Thanks!!! Food for thought is our goal. And if there’s ever a topic you’d like to see us tackle, please don’t be shy about telling us! As for those gnomes, we’re probably the only folks on earth whose favorite part of “The Full Monty” was the recurring gnome theme…
I too have been surprised by how civilised people are about blogging. Radio and newspaper commentaries had given me to think the internet is a raging and dangerous place. I felt very daring and nervous when I began.
It took me a while to realise how much one can gain through interaction with other bloggers. At first, I was reluctant both to leave comments and to respond to ones left on my blogs. I thought it would verge on touting for readers instead of relying on quality. Now, I have thrown all such cares to the wind; I drop in and out of other people’s blogs, am happy to tell them quite openly about mine and have enormous fun getting to know people all over the world. In fact, I am bowled over by it.
It seems rather grand to suggest blogging furthers world citizenship but I know my awareness of how other people live and think has been expanded enormously – and this almost exclusively through gardening blogs.
I’m now thinking I should go in search of political and scientific ones too . . .
Congratulations on the success of Poor Richard’s Almanac. I know lots of people enjoy it because I come across lots of references to it elsewhere.
Best wishes (it’s like a ‘Happy Birthday occasion!)
Lucy Corrander
PICTURES JUST PICTURES
We were so enormously relieved, too, Lucy! And we’ve enjoyed the world-expanding aspect as well. But we also wonder if people are so civil, cheerful, and friendly *because* they’re gardeners, and what would happen if we ventured out into the wider world. (Though when we did our “Pirate Week” posts, the piratical world was perfectly cheerful and friendly, too. Whew! No barracudas in those waters.) We’re glad you’re having such a grand time blogging, too!
Just discovered your blog, I’m glad it’s been so successful for you! So does this make me 30,021?
Ha!!! You’re 31,184, according to WordPress’s stats, Mr. Tumnas! And please tell us more about the wrath of Achilles! We’re totally intrigued!
Hi both of you, and many congrats. I am so glad that I didn’t miss this fabulous post and wanted to mention my fave post of yours, the lost parrot. I will never forget that tale, well written and even bringing a tear to this cynical, skeptical eye. I love your take on things and read without commenting, the great sin, I know. I will do better now that I am on wordpress. About those letters, while on blotanical, if you click on the wheelchair, try to post, it will then give you letters the next time without losing your comment. Found that out accidently one time. Good to know.
Thanks, Frances!!! The tale of the lost parrot made us cry, too. Thank heavens it had a happy ending! We think you’ll love WordPress—we do! And thanks so much for the tip on saving our comments. That can really get frustrating!