blogiversary Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Five Years

Stealing the idea from Bacardi, here’s Five Years by David Bowie.

Printed on April 29, 2010 at 2:30 p.m.

Frankly, I’m surprised I made it here. Five years of blogging every day, at least once a day. I have to work REALLY hard NOT to blog MORE than once a day, but I was reasonably successful; only 367 blogposts in the last 365 days, and I’m sure one of those was a prominent death that JUST COULDN’T WAIT.

But the other reason I’m surprised I made it is that last summer, I got REALLY discouraged.

I’m not one of those people who care about having hundreds of hits a day. When my monthly numbers dropped from 4109 in May 2009 to 3041 in June, it didn’t bother me over much. But when it sank to 1575 in July, THAT was really bothersome. What did I do wrong? I started posting notices of my blog posts on Twitter and Facebook, which actually did help a little, but I am not great at doing that regularly.

BTW, #1: I signed up with some service on the web to automatically post my blog post links to Facebook and Twitter. Instead, it was posting annoying advertising stuff to my Twitter account. So I canceled it, as soon as I saw it on my blog sidebar. Sorry about that.

BTW, #2: two people asked me why I have two Facebook accounts within 30 minutes when I went to the comic book show in Albany last Sunday. It’s easy: I started one, using my work e-mail, then I couldn’t find it. so I started ANOTHER one with my home e-mail. Now I know what both of them are. If I had the time, I’d just cancel one, but since there are people on one who aren’t on the other…well, it’d be work. Someday. When I retire, maybe, or take a long vacation where I actually just play on the computer. That is to say, not any time soon.

Then I noticed something: this blog, which had been on the first page of Google, disappeared from Google. It didn’t just fall off the first page; it seems to have vanished altogether.

Now, I can be found on a Google search. My Twitter and my blog on the Times Union can be found in the top 10. One of my Facebook pages and even my seldom-used Library 2.0 account – check out the vintage of the picture – are in the top 30. Even comments, articles I’ve written for other blogs, and specific pieces from the TU blog show up. But not this one.

This has pretty much forced a momentous decision.

My Blog QUESTIONS

This is what I’d like to know. The caveat first: I may do all, or some or none of the great suggestions you proffer.

1)What features have I had in this blog that you want me to continue or get back to doing, and what should I drop?

2) What would you suggest I do that would generate more traffic and, more importantly for me, more comments?

Any other bloggy-type comments would be appropriate here as well. You want me to link to your blog, e.g.?

Expect that I will have a post next week where I talk about changes that I want to make, as well as how I might integrate some of yours.
***
I do so love the new feature in Blogger. I will use it a LOT.

“Scheduled post publishing…is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

“Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks?”

Happens all the time.

“Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.”

“Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the ‘Post Options’ toggle to show the ‘Post date and time’ fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the ‘Publish’ button, your post will become ‘scheduled.’ When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.

“‘Scheduled’ posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any time before it gets published.”

This way, I don’t have to impose on someone to post for me. The thing makes a lot of sense.

“One quick note: If you want to give a post a date in the future but have it appear on your blog now, you’ll need to add in an extra step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will make it appear on your blog. Then, edit the post to change the date into the future and publish it again.

“We don’t re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on your blog but sort to the very top. The same is true of future dated posts you’ve already made, so there’s no need to worry about your existing posts disappearing, or having your blog assaulted by unplanned entries in, say, 2027.”

ROG

Happy Blogiversary to Ramblin’

Finishing year number three at that. If you were to tell me I’d be blogging for nearly 1100 straight days 1200 days ago, I’d say you were nuts. Well, the joke’s on me. Maybe I’m nuts. So be it.
I blogged 32 times in May, June, August, September, and December 2007, 31 times in July and November of 2007, plus each of the first three months of 2008, a whopping 34 times in October 2007, and a mere 30 times in April 2008. That would be 380 posts in 366 days. And this doesn’t count the posts I’ve made elsewhere.

Over the last 12 months – heck, ever – the best single day I had, in terms of people coming to the blog was May 18, with 477 visitors. It was fueled on the piece I had posted the day before, about counterfeit Cerebus #1, which ADD and subsequently other members of the comic book press picked up.

Likewise, it fueled the highest month I ever had.

The second best single day was 366 hits for a January interview with someone named Fred Hembeck, aided undoubtedly by a mention from Greg Burgas; it was among the first interviews of Fred to see the light of day, which helped. The worst day in the past year was a day in July, probably a Sunday, when I had 76 visitors.

I check my Technorati score periodically. It’s been as low as 22 and as high as 44; last I checked, it was 36.

When I Google Roger Green, my blog is generally in the Top 3 hits, along with Roger Green + Associates, Roger S. Green of Duluth, GA, and/or the former assemblyman Roger L. Green. The Denver ambient jazz musician’s on the rise, but the feng shui guy has been sinking. One of the Google oddities is that both my blog and one particular post has been near the top. For a while it was Chronicles of the Fantastic Four Chronicles, featuring Jack Kirby and John Byrne. More recently, it’s been the little piece I did about the death of Steve Gerber, which made me mildly uncomfortable, for some reason.

I want to thank those folks who’ve come by. More on all of this in the days ahead.

ROG

Johnny Bacardi’s blogiversary

Make your custom magnet at SupportOurRibbons.com

So, Johnny Bacardi hit his blog’s fifth anniversary, then quit it. It’s a great valedictory piece, starting with the sound clip “Five Years” by David Bowie; the given names of both David Bowie and Johnny Bacardi is David Jones. Fortunately, Johnny’s still doing his LiveJournal. So, ironically, everything on this post was used in Johnny’s LJ in 2005.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion		50%
Stability		53%
Orderliness		33%
Accommodation		70%
Interdependence		83%
Intellectual		56%
Mystical		50%
Artistic		36%
Religious		76%
Hedonism		30%
Materialism		70%
Narcissism		56%
Adventurousness		30%
Work ethic		50%
Self absorbed		43%
Conflict seeking		16%
Need to dominate		50%

Romantic		70%
Avoidant		50%
Anti-authority		70%
Wealth		36%
Dependency		63%
Change averse		70%
Cautiousness		56%
Individuality		50%
Sexuality		83%
Peter pan complex		63%
Physical security		76%
Physical Fitness		10%
Histrionic		36%
Paranoia		30%
Vanity		43%
Hypersensitivity		70%
Indie		43%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Which Bob Dylan song are you?

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

***
I feel like I’m forgetting someone else’s blogiversary. I mean, Lefty hit his fourth, but even HE forgot that.