So today I turn 25. It’s not celebrated as much as say turning 18 or 21 but for someone like me who’s a bit of a car nut its just as special since I pass that unfortunate tag of “youth” driver and classify for some reasonably priced insurance on spectacularly unpractical cars. I thought it would be a great time also to look back at the post I made on this same day a year ago only to find out, to my surprise, that there wasn’t one. The blog technically had its first birthday back in December but looking back on the post counts and page views it really only became a true blog in April when I started my daily routine of posting once a day, integrating with other social media services and you know putting some actual effort into developing it.
It’s a well known fact that I started this blog as a kind of knee jerk reaction to my assignment as a media spokesperson for the Canberra arm of the No Clean Feed organisation. For reasons I can’t exactly explain I thought this would be my in to speaking on other technology topics and hoped to use the grass roots effort to stop the clean feed as a sort of step up into the wider world of media. Obviously that didn’t happen, but that wasn’t for lack of trying.
I’ve casually mentioned a few times that this isn’t my first blog but never made the all important link to them. Well the first ever one was a half hearted attempt at website for a Team Fortress Classic clan called Vitor De Caelum (back when it was cool to have a Latin name) which was created in a rather mangled fashion using Dreamweaver and some of the tools that Geocities provides. I’ve tried to find a copy of the page but have always come up blank. I think it got trashed when Yahoo re-branded Geocities (although the account still exists but the alternate email address goes to one I haven’t had access to for almost 7 years). I might have a copy of it on a hard drive somewhere though…
The second is still alive and kicking despite not being updated for almost 3 years now. It started out as a hopeful dream of mine to chronicle my first trip overseas with my now wife Rebecca. Needless to say I didn’t actually end up posting anything about the trip and only mentioned a few things here and there. It’s kind of interesting to look at now as there’s the first tenuous steps into what I mostly do now with the whole analysis of tech, providing links to more information (I’ve even used Wikipedia in there, huzza!) and trying to educate people. It also signals the transition I made from working in the government to working for them as an outsourcer, which I am technically still doing to this day.
Like all of those who dare venture into this world of blogs and the new social media I started those sites with the thought that it was going to be my ticket to Internet fame and fortune (or at least a forum I could rule with an iron fist!). So it’s interesting to look back on all the failed attempts and see that really the only reason they didn’t take off was because I put absolutely zero effort into it. This blog on the other hand became somewhat of a passion once people told me they were reading it and I felt compelled to continue writing. It has since then turned from getting maybe 1 person a day reading one page for 20 seconds to well over 30 staying for minutes at a time. While I’m no Internet diva by any stretch of the imagination it still fills me with pride that people want to read what I’m writing.
And really that’s what this blog is all about: you the readers. I could blast out 10 articles a day on various bits and pieces but it would mean nothing if no one was reading. Whilst the recent growth over the past couple months is probably due to my blog reaching a critical SEO threshold (I.E. enough content to appear in multiple keyword searches and old enough to not be a throwaway site) the initial readership of around 10 people per day was a dedicated crowd of friends, relatives and those few who found me through random Google searches for strange keywords. Whilst I don’t have anything to lavish on you guys today (the next release of Geon is a while away, but it will be a big’un) I still want to say thanks for dropping by, reading my various blatherings and dropping the occasional comment.
A special thanks has to go out to my lovely wife for the awesome birthday presents she got me, 5 sets of Buckyballs and a NES business card holder. Truly I am a spoiled geek 😀
