One year anniversary stats

Today is this blog's one-year anniversary. Here are the current stats, rounded to two significant digits:

• Posts:  180 (3.5 a week)
• Total words written:  120,000 (the equivalent of 1.5 books)
• Comments:  1,800 (10 per post)
• Trackbacks:  860 (5 per post)
• "Long Tail comment elsewhere" entries: 300 (6 a week)
• RSS subs on Bloglines (including all feed variants):  2,700
• RSS subs elsewhere: Who knows? Maybe another 3,000 or so?
  
• Average daily traffic:  1,600 visitors (that doesn't include RSS readers)
• Total daily readers: Given the uncertainties in RSS readership (how many of those Bloglines subs are active?), I can only guess that it's somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000.
• Current Technorati rank (combining my old "longtail.typepad.com" URL, which still works  and continues to be linked to, and my current one, "thelongtail.com"): around 200.

Some lessons from the first year:

• People seem forgiving of the occasional times of crazy travel when I don't post for a week. No apology required.
  
• People also seem forgiving of occasional deviations from the mission of this blog. My Friday Fanboy series (usually on a Friday but sometimes just over a weekend), where I talk about what I'm really into in any given week, is fun for me and often (but not always) related to Long Tail themes. But there's no need to overstate the relevance to the theory. Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke. 
• The appetite for really wonky posts on Long Tail economic and statistical methodology is limited. There are, as it turns out, subjects too obscure even for a blog.
• On topical subjects, post sooner. Better to add something to the debate in its early hours than to wait too long trying to craft the definitive post after the crowd has moved on.
• I don't know if my "Long Tail comment elsewhere" sidebar is working as well as it might. It's meant to be a way to collect and call attention to relevant and interesting writing elsewhere without deviating too much from the mission of the mainbar/feed, which is to feature my own mini-essays on Long Tail-related topics. Although it's now possible to subscribe to the sidebar's feed separately, there are other limitations of Typelists (which is what that sidebar is) that I find frustrating, such as no posting dates and no archive (old ones just disappear from the public site). Any suggestions on a better approach? Or is it working well enough already?
• Finally, I should try to respond to more of the comments. I read them all and always find the ideas and advice of great value in steering the book. But I don't reply to many of them, largely because in instances where I agree no reply is necessary and in instances where I don't, I'm loath to take the debate off into what I fear will be an unproductive direction. It's in that latter category where I should more often dive in and see where it goes. Maybe when the book is done (by the end of the year, with luck).
  

Comments

[Tim Windsor]

Congratulations! I've been a reader since nearly day one.

Have you considered running your feed through a service like Feedburner? They offer reliable tracking of the number of feeds delivered.

[Ashley Bowers]

Happy 1 year anniversay. Impresive stats for a first year blog!Interesting lessons learned but I tend to find alot of people say they are forgiving but when your not there talk alot!

[Jason C]

"Current Technorati rank: ...around 200"

Am I the only one who feels a bit of irony in the fact that The Long Tail blog is approaching the head? Congratulations, Chris, on a successful year.

[coturnix]

Congrtulations!

It took me a long time to realize how important it is to promptly respond to all the comments, good and bad. Actually, especially to the good ones, as that spawns a better discussion. For trolls, the other commenters usually do a better job than the host as they have more freedom to be nasty than the host.

[Dave Davison]

If you do read these comments, please look at my "private" journal at Future Creators -: "The Long Tail from Chris Alexander - Blogging your next book"

[Retire at 30]

You might want to look into feedburner as a way of keeping track of how many people are subscribed to your feed (www.feedburner.com).

[JR]

Thank you for all of your hard work on this site! I really enjoy reading your posts as well as the left-hand side links, and have learned a LOT as a result. Keep up the great work and enjoy your holiday. Hope the book is a huge success.

[Manav Sehgal]

I do have a suggestion for your "Long Tail comment elsewhere" sidebar.

I use a Wordpress plugin called MiniBlog on my blog. It allows me to post "asides" or mini-posts with relevant URL, title, content and also has a neat feature of attaching a tag. I can use this tag to link the mini-posts to the related main posts, like I have done here - see under Recent Updates headline.

The plugin can also list the mini-posts separately similar to your sidebar, as you can see here on the archives page - see under Recent Activity headline.

Hope this helps - I am sure TypePad community can write a similar plugin if one already does not exist.

[Stu]

Thanks for putting your highlights/experiences up. It's extremely helpful to see your thoughts on a past year of blogging.

I like your point about commenting on topical stuff. Get it done quick, while it's still hot out of the oven.

Thanks again.