Happy Blogversary to me!

Three years ago, at 8.11 p.m. on January 1st, 2008, I posted the first article on this blog.

At the same time this evening, I had a Sitemeter visit total of 1,803,532, and a page view total of 2,585,150. Those totals aren't comprehensive, because Sitemeter can't follow those who come here via my RSS feed. Google Feedburner, to which I've subscribed since mid-July last year, monitors such visitors. It tells me that over the past five-and-a-half months, I've averaged RSS feed viewership of 1,317 pages per day, over and above the page view figures recorded by Sitemeter. At a ratio of page views to visits (based on Sitemeter's figures) of 1.43:1, that equates to an extra 917 visitors per day via RSS feed. Assuming that RSS readership has been relatively constant as a proportion of daily readers since this blog's inception, that means my total visit count is probably about 2.3 million, give or take a few thousand here or there.

I'm still a little mystified that so many of you find this blog of such interest that you come back to it again and again. (I'm not complaining, mind you!) I started it as an idle outlet for excess creative juices, and a way of sharing with friends the things that interested me, or caught my eye, on a daily basis. I'm very pleased that you find them interesting, too. As this blog enters its fourth year, you may be sure I'll continue to invest time and energy into it. I'm also hoping for good news this year about several publishing projects. If and when they bear fruit, this blog will expand its horizons into new endeavors. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Thanks for joining me here. I enjoy your company.

Peter