Friday, July 01, 2005
Hands Off, Please
I just checked the number of hits on The Globex Corporation Newsletter for today. It's been a pretty normal day, as I write this the site had registered 5 hits. That will most likely double by the end of the day and that'll be just fine with me. Those 10 folks will likely be people I know, friends from here in town or people I've met during employment in other parts of the country.
Ten hits, honestly I'm surprised that anyone reads this. I really only do it for myself, though. If someone enjoys it, well, great, but mostly I just do this to keep in the practice of writing every day. It's working, I do this nearly every day and I think I've actually improved as a writer since the first of the year when I started this. I still make way too many typos and I am a horrific speller, but I'm just trying to get pages on the web, I'm not too terribly worried about those things. For me the practice in writing is the important thing.
So this little blog has received somewhere around 1900 hits since I put the counter on. Again, I'm surprised that anyone ever sees this. I get the occasional comment from people who just happen by. On Valentine's Day I had a post that got quite a few people wandering by to stop in and give it a read. The post was about getting served with my divorce papers on February 14th 1992, which I thought was a pretty good piece of writing. The reason that anybody gave it a second look, though, was the title, "Happy Fucking Valentine's Day."
I didn't name the post as I did to garner attention, but that's what it did. In a way I feel bad about it, since I try not to swear gratuitously in this blog, but I thought the title really fit the post. I almost always title a post when I'm done writing it as opposed to comming up with an attention grabbing title. I learned that I could get a lot more hits by coming up with outlandish headlines, but for the most part I've tried not to do that. The numbers just don't mean that much to me.
Last week I wrote a post about BOJ News Service topping 700 hits. Now this I was pretty proud of. BOJ is something that I actually want people to see. The idea is to show off some of my Photoshop skills by making topical references to news of the day. It's been fun, and people have noticed. That's cool. I've gotten others to link to the site and have received quite a bit of notice from other political blogs, particularly Todd Epp's SD Watch. Todd has been good enough to name particular posts on BOJ as "Must Reads" on occasion, though there realy isn't much reading involved on any of the BOJ posts. Each time this has happened, there has been a spike in the number of hits. The site's first 100 hit day corresponded with a "Must Read" recomendation.
The BRAC hearing in Rapid City generated another spike in activity. It was around this time that Thunewatch.com noticed BOJ News Service and made a nice comment in the body of his blog. Granted this was mostly because BOJ has been kind of tough on Sen. John Thune and his claims that he "had the President's ear." Still, I made people giggle with something I did, and as far as I'm concerned, that's what I'm here for.
Yesterday the editor of Thunewatch.com contacted me, asking me to do my take on a breaking Thune scandal. I read through the info and did this. Yesterday, that one post has generated the biggest day in BOJ News Service history, more than quadrupling the previous biggest day. And it's not done, today has generated nearly as many hits and there's still a significant portion of the day left. Last weeks's total hits of 700 has been dwarfed by the current hit number of over 1700.
I'm happy with the interest generated. It's nice that people from around the country are seeing some of the work TSA and I are doing (I haven't forgotten about TSA, he's a contributor to BOJ as well). The hits are coming so fast an furious now, that I can't keep track of them. One thing about the hits bothers me. Before yesterday, the hits were overwhelmingly from the state of South Dakota. BOJ was created to primarily look at ("lampoon"?) South Dakota politics. Yeah, the occasional hit came from around the country. I particularly liked the hits from DC, the Sergeant at Arms of the US Senate, and those hits from the Democratic Party Headquarters were a real kick to see.
While I'm still getting a lot of hits from South Dakota, it's not overwhelmingly so now. Thunewatch.com apparently has a large out of state following. Good for him, I suppose, but it makes me wonder why so many people from around the country are interested in our Senator and his claims about the President's ear. Now I've become part of that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if South Dakotans have issues with Sen. Thune it's good for us to discuss it. If people from outside of our state I'd perefer that they keep their opinions to themselves, or at the very least, don't try to influence us. While that may be a pretty naiive view of politics, I think it's right. I didn't like the President campaigning so hard for John Thune in South Dakota in 2004, but I didn't like all of the out of state money Tom Daschle received either. I'd rather have South Dakotans responsible for who the Senator from South Dakota is.
BOJ
Ten hits, honestly I'm surprised that anyone reads this. I really only do it for myself, though. If someone enjoys it, well, great, but mostly I just do this to keep in the practice of writing every day. It's working, I do this nearly every day and I think I've actually improved as a writer since the first of the year when I started this. I still make way too many typos and I am a horrific speller, but I'm just trying to get pages on the web, I'm not too terribly worried about those things. For me the practice in writing is the important thing.
So this little blog has received somewhere around 1900 hits since I put the counter on. Again, I'm surprised that anyone ever sees this. I get the occasional comment from people who just happen by. On Valentine's Day I had a post that got quite a few people wandering by to stop in and give it a read. The post was about getting served with my divorce papers on February 14th 1992, which I thought was a pretty good piece of writing. The reason that anybody gave it a second look, though, was the title, "Happy Fucking Valentine's Day."
I didn't name the post as I did to garner attention, but that's what it did. In a way I feel bad about it, since I try not to swear gratuitously in this blog, but I thought the title really fit the post. I almost always title a post when I'm done writing it as opposed to comming up with an attention grabbing title. I learned that I could get a lot more hits by coming up with outlandish headlines, but for the most part I've tried not to do that. The numbers just don't mean that much to me.
Last week I wrote a post about BOJ News Service topping 700 hits. Now this I was pretty proud of. BOJ is something that I actually want people to see. The idea is to show off some of my Photoshop skills by making topical references to news of the day. It's been fun, and people have noticed. That's cool. I've gotten others to link to the site and have received quite a bit of notice from other political blogs, particularly Todd Epp's SD Watch. Todd has been good enough to name particular posts on BOJ as "Must Reads" on occasion, though there realy isn't much reading involved on any of the BOJ posts. Each time this has happened, there has been a spike in the number of hits. The site's first 100 hit day corresponded with a "Must Read" recomendation.
The BRAC hearing in Rapid City generated another spike in activity. It was around this time that Thunewatch.com noticed BOJ News Service and made a nice comment in the body of his blog. Granted this was mostly because BOJ has been kind of tough on Sen. John Thune and his claims that he "had the President's ear." Still, I made people giggle with something I did, and as far as I'm concerned, that's what I'm here for.
Yesterday the editor of Thunewatch.com contacted me, asking me to do my take on a breaking Thune scandal. I read through the info and did this. Yesterday, that one post has generated the biggest day in BOJ News Service history, more than quadrupling the previous biggest day. And it's not done, today has generated nearly as many hits and there's still a significant portion of the day left. Last weeks's total hits of 700 has been dwarfed by the current hit number of over 1700.
I'm happy with the interest generated. It's nice that people from around the country are seeing some of the work TSA and I are doing (I haven't forgotten about TSA, he's a contributor to BOJ as well). The hits are coming so fast an furious now, that I can't keep track of them. One thing about the hits bothers me. Before yesterday, the hits were overwhelmingly from the state of South Dakota. BOJ was created to primarily look at ("lampoon"?) South Dakota politics. Yeah, the occasional hit came from around the country. I particularly liked the hits from DC, the Sergeant at Arms of the US Senate, and those hits from the Democratic Party Headquarters were a real kick to see.
While I'm still getting a lot of hits from South Dakota, it's not overwhelmingly so now. Thunewatch.com apparently has a large out of state following. Good for him, I suppose, but it makes me wonder why so many people from around the country are interested in our Senator and his claims about the President's ear. Now I've become part of that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if South Dakotans have issues with Sen. Thune it's good for us to discuss it. If people from outside of our state I'd perefer that they keep their opinions to themselves, or at the very least, don't try to influence us. While that may be a pretty naiive view of politics, I think it's right. I didn't like the President campaigning so hard for John Thune in South Dakota in 2004, but I didn't like all of the out of state money Tom Daschle received either. I'd rather have South Dakotans responsible for who the Senator from South Dakota is.
BOJ
# posted by Blind Orange Julius @ 12:26 PM 
