If I’ve Told You Once, I’ve Told You a Thousand Times…

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If I’ve Told You Once, I’ve Told You a Thousand Times…

By Brian | November 11, 2009 | Share on Facebook

Today is quite a significant milestone in the extremely insignificant world of I Should Be Sleeping. This is my 1,000th blog post. In honor of this prestigious, yet highly inconspicuous occasion, I present you with some fun facts about my little corner of the web:

My first post was on May 8, 2005 and was entitled Hello World. Those who studied the ancient art of C Programming with Kernighan and Ritchie will understand. Everyone else will recognize it as a friendly greeting.
It took me 1,648 days to write 1,000 posts, or roughly two posts every three days. That’s not a bad pace to keep up over a period of four and a half years, if I do say so myself.
My posts have encompassed eighteen different categories, ranging from Politics (20%) to Technology (18%) to Sports (8%). A full 30% of my posts have been about Random Events or Weird News Stories. All of this strikes me as very representative of the things I think about, which I guess makes sense after all this time.
I’ve received 1,677 comments, or roughly two comments for every three posts. Since I joined Facebook in late May of this year, though, my comment rate has jumped roughly 50%.
I only have detailed stats going back to January, 2007. Since that time, though, more than 54,000 visitors have graced these pages, taking in almost 82,000 pages. Extrapolating across the life of the blog, it is very likely that I’ve received upwards of 85,000 visitors and have served upwards of 130,000 pages.
My post popular post in that time have been my Review of a January, 2006 Billy Joel Concert at Madison Square Garden which has garnered over 6,200 visits and sixty-six comments. Also insanely popular was my reprinting of Premiere Magazine’s Twenty Most Overrated Movies of All Time, which has been seen more than 5,500 times (almost 2,000 of them on the same day – August 28, 2008 – when someone tagged it on stumbleupon.com).

If I’m being brutally honest about my progress, I’d say I’m reasonably pleased with what this blog has become – a place to record my thoughts, an opportunity to learn a bit about running a modern web site, and a chance to watch the web grow from a static medium to a dynamic medium to a socially networked medium. I’ve made some legitimate friends here, and have made the acquaintance of a few interesting, if not notable, people (a few of whom have sent me free stuff!).

That said, I’d love to see the site “go viral,” and become a place where dozens of people I don’t know discuss the topics I throw out there, but I haven’t found the time nor the secret, magical ingredient to make that happen so far. After 4.5 years and 1,000 posts, I think it’s safe to say it will probably never happen. Then again, you can’t win if you don’t play.

So, to sum up, I thank you all for being a somewhat-willing part of this. If you’re still reading at this point, you are likely one of the 5-10 loyal readers who have provided more than half of the traffic described above. A special thank you to you guys as well.

Here’s to another 1,000 interesting things to say!

Topics: Blogging about Blogs | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “If I’ve Told You Once, I’ve Told You a Thousand Times…”

Janet says at November 12th, 2009 at 8:41 am :

Congratulations, Brian. As a late arrival, I can only hope to become one of the 5-10, I guess (6-11?). My knowledge of (and interest in) Billy Joel stops just before “Uptown Girl,” but I did check out the overrated movies, and was struck by how many of the ones being discussed were relatively recent – my guess is that lots of them will lose their standing over time. But hands off The Wizard of Oz, if only for the brilliant and innovative use of the transitions between black and white and color (in 1939, remember).
Ilya says at November 12th, 2009 at 12:22 pm :

Hear, hear! I’ve been around your blog long enough to be able to honestly say that I’m always looking forward to your thoughts and ruminations. Congratulations on this milestone!

Too bad you’ve long done away with one of my favorite recurring features on you blog – ‘How people find me’… ::hint, hint::
Brian says at November 12th, 2009 at 2:06 pm :

@Janet: If you stopped listening after Uptown Girl, then you missed three studio albums: The Bridge, Storm Front, and River of Dreams (we’ll ignore Fantasies & Delusions, which is classical piano music). Fortunately, thanks to the wonderful world of iTunes, you don’t need to go out & buy three entire albums to hear the music, If you’re interested, I’d recommend This is the Time, Matter of Trust, and Baby Grand (a duet with the late, great Ray Charles) from The Bridge, I Go to Extremes, Leningrad and And So it Goes from Storm Front, and All About Soul, Lullaby and Famous Last Words from River of Dreams.

Or, you can go out and buy the My Lives box set, which contains lots of live performances, as well as some previously unreleased material (including some demo tracks and songs that became other songs, which is a wonderful insight into the song writing and recording process, IMHO). I wrote an extensive series of reviews on this four disc set, which is available here, here, here and here.

As for The Wizard of Oz – I’m with you 100%. As I said in my post, I don’t believe it’s overrated. It was a seminal step in movie making back in 1939. Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey – that one did absolutely nothing for me.

@Ilya: Wow – a request! Who am I to deny my loyal audience member(s) what they crave? (Besides, I enjoyed those myself…)

I’ll will restart the feature straight away, although I’ve sworn off promising things on a regular (e.g., monthly) basis. Let’s compromise on intermittent updates, ‘mkay? That way, I don’t feel those pangs of guilt when I skip a month…
Jeff Porten says at November 12th, 2009 at 6:07 pm :

Congratulations; I’m currently clocking in at 1,174, but I’ve been doing this since 1999. It will be interesting to see if the fear of being lapped by you spurs me to post more.