It's my Blogbirthday! 03/10/2005 A year ago today, the Gone Away blog was born, kicking and yelling its way into the blogosphere. It was a fairly basic baby, having no comments system, just one chameleon graphic and no RSS feed. The comments, RSS and other improvements were grafted on along the way, a few more graphics added, and it grew fat with subjects beyond the American Journal it started with. And now it survives as a healthy infant, still growing, still requiring constant attention, but beginning to find its feet and get into mischief.This morning the blog received its first blogbirthday present, from Technorati of all places. For months, Technorati has insisted that the blog has 50 links from 45 sites and is at position 40,418 in its list. But today it appears that the list has been updated at last; Gone Away is now credited with position 19,184 and has 274 links from 81 sites. Thank you, Technorati! And thank you too, all of you who have demonstrated such fine taste and good sense in linking to me.In celebration of this momentous event, my son, Mad, was going to design a new header. But I have been unable to contact him this morning and so have no idea whether this is being implemented or not. Time will tell, I guess.In the meantime, I can show off a bit with a few statistics and graphs that show the baby's growth over these last twelve months. I know this is a bit like passing baby pics around but humor me, I'm the proud father. Let's look at hits first; they always give some impressive-sounding numbers. Notice that these are the figures for MadTV - it is very difficult to separate Gone Away's figures from the main site's but, since most of the traffic goes to me, the numbers give us a reasonable idea of how I'm doing.src="/images/Hits 0405a.jpg" alt="First year's hits" />Apart from a few blips, the general trend is relentlessly upwards and we are now getting in the region of 6,000 hits a day. Not bad for a beginner.Now for the sessions stats, an indication of how many unique visitors we're getting:src="/images/Sessions 0405a.jpg" alt="First year's sessions" />This is a smoother graph than the one for hits although the blips are still evident. Again, the trend is upwards and we are now getting 800 visitors a day. Small beer compared to the top blogs but healthy for a litblog, methinks.For the entire year, we have had 877,762 hits and 148,091 sessions.Okay, so those are the statistics but what real achievements do we have to look back on? I thought it might be a good idea to pick out those posts that I think the best in each category. Think of it as similar to the film industry awarding itself accolades every year. These are my picks:American Journal: Oklahoma Nights. This was a very early post, before the days of comments and, as a result, it has none. I think it deserves better.Memories of Africa: Chimanimani. A fairly easy choice since the Manis are so spectacular.Memories of England: A Place Apart. My favorite place in England; this one was always going to win its category.Computer related posts: The Computer and I. A more difficult choice, particularly as Slay held the comments record for so long, but this one wins because it defines where I'm coming from in respect of computing.Blogging: Writers' Blogs and the Mighty PR. This one was the beginning and cause of the Writers Blog Alliance and so I think it wins by virtue of being "the post that launched a thousand dreams".General Thoughts: Art. This, too, was a new beginning; I think the first time I decided to put down my thoughts on a subject entirely unrelated to anything the blog had dealt with before. It seemed quite well-received and encouraged me to do more.And, finally, the jewel in the crown, since fiction is really my first love -Fiction: Thermopylae. Thermopylae is my darling and was the whole reason for this awards exercise. It's weird and wonderful, quirky and unashamed, and, even though it's one of those things that I only do when in a crazy mood, I love it because it works! And yes, of course this is a way to get more people to read it...And so endeth the awards ceremony and my little celebration of a year's blogging. If you only read one of the links up there, make sure it's Thermopylae. For those who don't know, let me just add that Thermopylae was the place where 120 Spartans under Leonidas held back the entire Persian army of thousands that was invading Greece. They were betrayed and overrun in the end but bought enough time for the other Greek city states to organize a defense.Go read it - you'll love it or hate it!
Clive
Mad Happy Birthday to us, happy birthday to us! Date Added: 03/10/2005
Gone Away Happy birthday, dear Go-one, Happy birthday to us! :D Date Added: 03/10/2005
Chelsea Fc Good work, I wish my blog got as many visitors as yours, but I'm working on getting links and everything. Date Added: 03/10/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Chelsea. With a blogname like yours, it can only be matter of time before all the fans start visiting! Date Added: 03/10/2005
Gone Away Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3, testing... Date Added: 03/10/2005
Sarah HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Date Added: 03/10/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Sarah! *blush, blush* :) Date Added: 03/10/2005
Ken Unless I write a haiku, which I don't think I'll risk, there's no super-subtle way that I can think of to say congratulations and to wish you a happy anniversary, so I'll just content myself with the obvious: happy birthday and many more of them! Date Added: 03/10/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Ken. And I promise never to mention the subject of haikus again! ;) Date Added: 03/10/2005
Broken Messenger Thank you, Technorati! And thank you too, all of you who have demonstrated such fine taste and good sense in linking to me. Ugh. Now I'm wondering if linking to you was such a good idea. Oh, for the love of humility! Congrats on your one year milestone, Clive. May it be one of many. Brad Date Added: 03/10/2005
Gone Away Said in jest, Brad, I assure you. I thought of putting (jk) after it but decided it was obvious enough. Can anyone really hear me saying that? Thanks for the congrats. :) Date Added: 03/10/2005
Trée Clive, where's the cake? You have a birthday posting with no cake. Now that's just a bunch of baloney--LOL. ;-) Date Added: 03/10/2005
Broken Messenger Clive, So was my retort...just in jest, my friend. I may not know you that well, but I know you enough to know that you were kidding. Just because my blog is so serious, doesn't mean I always am... ;o) Congrats again on the milestone. Brad Date Added: 03/10/2005
Gone Away After all that baloney, I couldn't afford a cake, Trée. :D Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Just when I thought I'd got this American humor thing right... Sometimes it's not easy to tell in print, Brad, so I just cover all the bases. ;) Date Added: 04/10/2005
Trée I'll send some of my women over to take care of this little matter. Can't have a birthday without a cake. By the way, is there one in particular you'd like to see. LMAO. Sorry Clive, I just couldn't resist. ;-) Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away The generosity of the man! Mind you, with all those gathered around you, Trée, I guess you can spare one or two. Send one over on a bike... :D Date Added: 04/10/2005
keeefer Bappy Hirthday. May the seed of your loins be fruitful in the belly of your woman (figuritively speaking) Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Er, thank you, Keef. I'd wish you the same if you weren't in a whole lot more danger of it ever coming true! :D Date Added: 04/10/2005
John Congtatulations Clive, and many more of them, its a fantastic blog! GBYAY Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Thank you indeed, John. :) Date Added: 04/10/2005
Garnet Congrats, Clive. Here's to many more hits, posts and comments. and a few million more brilliant words from you. I notice you're blog is highly circulated in all the blog lists. What's your secret? Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away I don't think there's any secret in particular, Garnet. I started the blog with a particular goal in mind (to become so noticeable within the blogosphere and the net that a publisher or agent might take my books on) and only later found that it was a pretty unrealistic one for a litblog. That remains the goal, however, as I see no reason why a litblog should not break through to become as popular as any other type of blog. Of course, that means I have had to do a lot of hard work, using all the strategies that I see other blogs using (encouraging the search engines to see my posts using Technorati, etc., the traffic exchanges and so on) and inventing new ways to increase the visibility of litblogs (WBA). There remains a long way to go; my traffic and readership stats are tiny when compared with those of the top blogs. I am ever looking for new ways to promote the blog further and, if that helps other litblogs to gain more recognition, that's great. There's no reason why we shouldn't be the next great thing on the net! Thanks for the kind comments! :) Date Added: 04/10/2005
ME Strauss The 65th Crayon and I both wish you the happiest birthday and anniversary. We're sorry to have come late to the party. I've never tasted a bologna birthday cake--It must be a British-South African delicacy that I've missed. :) However, 65 and I have left you some chameleon crayons in the foyer on the silver tray. Look carefully, because they have tendency to blend in. Congratlations may you 19,184 become four figures in no time at all. The 65th Crayon and the person who works for him Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Mr Crayon. I truly do appreciate your good wishes - let that never be camouflaged. And such a colorful present! You certainly know how to draw a person out. As for the bologna birthday cake, I'm afraid Trée had the last piece... ;) Date Added: 04/10/2005
Kurt Congrats, Clive. A year is a long, long road of writing to go down. Here's to another one coming up! Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Thanks, Kurt! :) Date Added: 04/10/2005
John (SYNTAGMA) Happy birthday, Clive. As your technical wizardry hasn't been able to rustle up a birthday cake, I've provided one on mine. Don't count the candles, though :-) Date Added: 04/10/2005
John (SYNTAGMA) Drat. Try again ... On Mine. Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Excellent. Thanks for that, John! And that Ning thing has to be the way of the future - pop over to Syntagma everyone and have a look... Date Added: 04/10/2005
easywriter Oh Wonderful news and congratulations. Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Easy! :) Date Added: 04/10/2005
Marti Congratulations my friend! You are a magnificent writer and I am delighted to read every new entry. Long may you blog! Date Added: 04/10/2005
Gone Away Oh thank you, Marti! You are too kind. :) Date Added: 04/10/2005
Walter Jeffries Nice header photo! And congrats on the bday and huge hit counts. Excellent work. Date Added: 05/10/2005
Gone Away Thanks, Walter - much appreciated. Date Added: 05/10/2005
Janus Happy Blog Birthday! (looks for the cake) Date Added: 05/10/2005
Gone Away Thanks, Janus! (cake all gone) :( Date Added: 05/10/2005
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