That was the year that was (2010 in review)

by Steve

Happy New January everybody! Now, I’m not one for new year’s resolutions, mainly because several years ago my new year’s resolution was to have no further new year’s resolutions. And I wouldn’t want to break that one. However, If I did, I might be tempted to complete WordPress’ Post A Day challenge. But I’m sure I would pretty soon run out of stuff to write and end up just posting pictures of monkeys each day.

Now, this might go particularly well, and lead to a book deal for the Surprise Stocking Filler Hit of Christmas 2011, 365 Funny Monkey Pictures. It might even lead to a film deal, starring the PG Tips monkeys. Or, it might just lead to a dead blog full of horrible monkey photos.

So, probably best to avoid that and simply steal an idea from a regular of this parish, Builder of Coalitions, and augment the friendly automated WordPress review of Wait until next year‘s past year. My hi-larious comments are in italics. I should have gone for footnotes, but I’m lazy…

The stats helper monkeys (those monkeys again!) at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

I suspect everyone gets a ‘Wow’, but that makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,600 times in 2010. That’s about 13 full 747s.

I think a bus analogy might have worked better for me. That’s not enough planes for my liking.

In 2010, there were 95 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 213 posts. There were 96 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 32mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

95 posts? I had no idea. If I had, I might have rushed five more posts out before the end of 2010. I’m rather sad I missed my century.

The busiest day of the year was September 9th with 142 views. The most popular post that day was An unfunny night at the Greenwich Comedy Festival.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, baseballgb.co.uk, doctorbeatnik.wordpress.com, My Comments, and 853blog.wordpress.com.

Thanks referer-people!

Some visitors came searching, mostly for england flag, england world cup, wait until next year, england flag picture, and england flag world cup.

Any guesses what people were after? Clue: Not My Writing.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

An unfunny night at the Greenwich Comedy Festival September 2010
8 comments

England win – let the hype begin! September 2009
1 comment

Injury time – time for reform? September 2009
15 comments

MLB.TV – What shall I buy? And when? (My Baseball Winter #5) January 2010
5 comments

On writing: The romance of the writer from Hemingway to Gladwell November 2009
34 comments

Two 2010 posts and three 2009 posts. WordPress tried to be kind and say this showed my writing has longevity. I think it is more the case that I wrote little of note in 2010.

So, there you go. I might try to break the 100 post mark this year. I might even try for enough visitors to fill a dozen cruise liners. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m trying out a super-new look. I think the colours need some work, so I’ll continue to tweak…

4 Comments to “That was the year that was (2010 in review)”

builderofcoalitions says:

January 5, 2011 at 5:08 pm

I do think they rate everyone a “wow” who posts at a somewhat regular pace, like one post a week. 95 posts is a nice output, though. I would be in that ballpark if I finished every post I started. Well done. I like the new banner. I’ve been considering a new look. The simple layout and SM pic aren’t doing it for me these days.

Honestly, I did this post because I wanted to get three posts a week published and I only had ideas for two that seemed doable. I still have a third to write for the week, but it’s in the works.

LikeLike

Steve says:

January 6, 2011 at 1:57 pm

Thanks. I’ll continue to tinker with the site for a while, at least until I start to have some ideas of what to write. Great to see you post more frequently – really enjoying all the new stuff going up.

LikeLike

- Julie says:
  
  January 15, 2011 at 1:23 am
  
  I missed most of December, but am aiming for 2 posts a week in 2011. It’s not a resolution, just a target.
  
  The new banner is great. Is that you, or someone you know?
  
  LikeLike
  
  - Steve says:
    
    January 17, 2011 at 9:04 am
    
    Hi Julie – two posts a week sounds good to me – I look forward to reading them!
    The banner is an image lifted from Flickr that I just cropped a little. The original is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/3704381106/Glad you like it!
    
    LikeLike