January 23, 2005
General:
An experiment...
By Jack Grant...and a likely futile attempt to increase the traffic here.
I'll be trying to do a podcast of what I feel are the best posts I've put here at Random Fate, once a week, with at least one commentary or opinion post, and one "geek cool" or "science & technology" post. What I want to know is this: is anyone interested in hearing me read what I've written? And, do you think it might get more people interested in reading what I write?
Discounting the readers who may delete all cookies when they close their browsers, I have somewhere around 45 returning visitors a day. That translates into probably around 75 to 100 regular readers (with generous assumptions), and those numbers make me wonder if the effort I put into this is worth it. I do put a lot of work into what I write here, not all of it visible. A lot of what I write goes into the oblivion of the virtual trash can, edited away into the bin of wasted effort. I've finally assembled all the software I need to podcast, now I wonder if it's worth the risk of sticking my ass out there to be ridiculed.
Yes, 75 people is a lot in real terms, more than any average person would have before weblogs, but I want more, especially given the audience I see others who I feel are far less thoughtful or thought-provoking get. Tell me what you think.
Posted by Jack Grant at 22:15 on 23 January 2005Don't give up. It takes time to build an audience. Let me give you a rough idea of the hit totals for my main page. I started Cosmoetica- basicall a poetry, and tthen essay, site, on 1/9/01. In its 1st anniversary I had about 30k hits. After year 2 I had about 330k, or a ten fold increase. After year 3 I had about 6 mill, 400k, and just a few weeks ago, after 4 years, about 22 mill, 600k. Given that the top blogs get about 20 million raw hits a month, and yahoo will get that in a few hours, I know it doesn't seem like alot, and dividing by a 100, to weed out regular readers, and surfing inside the website, I estimate I've had about a quarter million individs stop by. For a poetry site that's non-commercial, and unaffiliated, that's fantastic.
I did it w quality. period. Blogging is a fad, and in a few years manyy of the big names will give up or lose popularity. But, your site, and other intellectual sites, like EG or Majikthise, I predict, will flourish once the blog boom goes bust.
Just keep on doing your thing, and it will get notice. Can I guarantee you'll follow my site's progression? No, but I piss alot of bad writers and blowhards off, and they do me the favor of railing against me. Still, quality perdures. Don't be discouraged. DAN
