Today marks the first anniversary of this blog going online.
Pause.
Wow, that went fast.
From the first post to this one… my admin panel tells me, “There are currently 452 posts and 952 comments, contained within 24 categories.” My webstats tell me I’ve served over 600,000 pages to date. The current average is over 1,000 vistors per day (ranging from 900-1200 this past month) viewing an average 3,700 pages per day (ranging from 2500 to over 5000 last month). This is not normal for a blog… there’s a new one started something like every 2 seconds these days, and most get like four visits a month that don’t come from the blogger themself.
I don’t know where you people are all coming from or why… but once again, welcome here. I warn you, despite the above traffic stats, I don’t really know a whole lot about anything — but this has never stopped me from offering an opinion on everything else in the past. In other words, I’m a self-proclaimed expert ;^) …just kidding.
I’ve been continually blessed and occasionally blown away at the reception I’ve received within the emerging church conversation. A year ago, I pretty much just jumped right in with both feet, figuring “Hey, if it’s a conversation, anyone can join, right?” So I did, and my experience suggests that I’ve proven that yes, in fact anyone can join.
A lot has happened over the past year, much of it chronicled here, between the lines. I was wondering what I might do to mark this milestone when it came around… for a while I thought I would celebrate by discontinuing with my pseduonym and starting to publish under my real name, but in an unexpected way, “Brother Maynard’s” secret identity has become a bit of a “thing” beyond what I expected. Some people have been given my real name and they said they would just keep calling me Brother Maynard, if that was alright. It is.
So when I started the blog, I basically just grabbed a basic WordPress theme, changed the colours a bit, tossed in a new header image, and away we went. I always meant to do a proper site design, so a month or so ago I decided to build a new myself a new WordPress theme from scratch as a blogday present to myself. I’ll still be tweaking for a while I expect, but the big day rolled around, so here it is, unveiled. If anyone has any browser issues or whatever, leave me a comment or fire off an email letting me know about the issue and which browser you’re using.
In the meantime, a big thank-you to everyone who’s visited and who’s commented over the past year — you’ve all made the experience a rewarding one for me, and one I look forward to continuing. Oh, and help yourself to a piece of cake.
happy blogday! i really like the new template, and i have been enjoying your blog over the last year. peace
Congratulations on reaching this milestone. You’ve certainly made a great contribution to the blogosphere.
I’d be more than happy to get the amount of visits you get in a day over a whole week.
I look forward to the next few years.
Happy Blogday! I’ve also very much enjoyed reading your blog over the past year. Thanks for jumping in!
Bro’,
A very happy blogday to you. I’m thankful I stumbled on your site…I am one of the 1200 a day…I check it almost EVERY DAY and I’m rarely (almost never) disappointed. Keep it coming and much peace to you and yours.
Happy Blogday Hubby! I am the lucky one to be able to call Brother Maynard my husband! And I want to thank all of you for leaving comments and encouraging or challenging him in his journey. He is a better person for having “met” all of you.
The Wife
There you go, everybody — the wife has spoken! This is her first comment on the site, and for the record, she’s right about me being a better person for having engaged with the visitors and commenters here. I would not go so far as to say she’s the lucky one, I think any of the good stuff I do or know is because of her :^)
Thanks Rodney (and everyone else) for your kind words. I want to think maybe most of the traffic is Googlebots and comment spammers, but Technorati seems to think people link here… can’t imagine why, but they’re welcome in my twisted little version of the world. Read on, I’ll warp your mind… I feel like Monty Burns now ;^)
Excellent….
Well, Bro, you’ve come a long way it seems. I’ve enjoyed reading your thoughts and sharing the journey with you and the others I’ve met. Happy Blogday! And many happy returns.
So… when’s your wife getting a blog?
Happy Blog day to you
Happy blog day to you
Happy blog day Brother Maynard
Happy blog day to you.
And many more!
It is an honor to be able to post on your blog and not be erased!
Thank you!
And thanks for pushing my brain to think!
Be Blessed
Keep posting!
BTW – I don’t have a gift for you. Unless you want a hug? :)
DANG! I’ve been blogging for over two years, and you get more visits in three days than I do in an entire month!
Probably just means you’re smarter and more eloquent than me, but I think we both knew that when we first met 18 years ago!
Happy blogday, Brother Maynard. I’m glad you’re a part of this conversation.
SP, thanks for the offer, but…
Rob, I’ve half a mind to delete your comment for saying I’m smarter or more eloquent… but I have an unwritten policy of not moderating comments into oblivion just because I happen to disagree.
As for the traffic, I would venture to say that the biggest single factor is that I try to post something daily… which is something I learned from the news aggregation site I ran a few years back, prior to the advent of blogging, at least by that name. This means that what I post may not always be intelligent, but some law of averages must dictate somehow that there will be some good stuff in there to keep people coming back. One nice thing about WordPress is the “future posting” capability, which means if I want or need a day off from blogging, I can have one anytime and nobody needs to know… I try to keep a few entries in draft mode, and then post ahead for a couple of days so they automagically appear while I’m ignoring things. I took 10 days off in August and September and there was still fresh content daily ;^)
Anyway, just for the record, everyone listen up: if I have anyone to
blamethank for the motivation, instigation, or encouragement to start blogging and become a participant in this online ec-conversation, it would be Robbymac.When I started this thing, I didn’t know if I would fade out in a month or two without really ever being noticed, but it would still have been a help at least to me at that time. On the contrary, I still feel like I’m on the upswing, as there’s so much more I want to write on this subject. After I finish thinking it up, that is ;^) For me, this is a very good thing (to which my wife probably alluded above), as there was a time before I became involved in the conversation when I really couldn’t be all that motivated on any of these subjects like I once was. This is progress!