Goodbye 2005 – This Blogging Year
Hold up!
See that little date above?
This post was published years ago.
My opinions have changed over time: I think it's quite fun to keep old posts online so that you can see how that has happened. The downside is that there are posts on this site that express views that I now find offensive, or use language in ways I'd never dream of using it today.
I don't believe in airbrushing history, but I do believe that it's important to acknowledge the obvious: some of what I've written in the past has been crap. Some of it was offensive. Some of it was offensively bad. And there's may be some brass among the muck (you can make up your own mind on that).
Some of what I've presented as my own views has been me—wittingly or unwittingly—posturing without having considered all the facts. In a few years, I'll probably think the same about what I'm writing today, and I'm fine with that. Things change. People grow. Society moves forward.
The internet moves on too, which means there might be broken links or embedded content that fails to load. If you're unlucky, that might mean that this post makes no sense at all.
So please consider yourself duly warned: this post is an historical artefact. It's not an exposition of my current views nor a piece of 'content' than necessarily 'works'.
You may now read on... and in most cases, the post you're about to read is considerably shorter than this warning box, so brace for disappointment.
Given that 2005 is now all but wrapped up, I thought it would be good to go back and look at why it is that 2005 has been the most amazing year yet for sjhoward.co.uk.
In 2004, the site generated 238,122 hits. That’s quite a lot for a little site like mine. In 2005, I’ve been blown away by 1,200,000 hits – the exact figures aren’t yet in at the time of writing, but that’s very nearly one million more hits than last year. That is truly incredible. Since January, the average daily number of hits has more than tripled.
Of course, this popularity boom comes with inherent difficulties. In the early part of the year, the site was plagued by Internal Server Errors as my host struggled to keep up with the sudden explosion in site traffic. Over the course of the year, however, B-One have become used to the traffic level, and so Internal Server Errors have almost become a thing of the past.
This year has also been an incredibly prolific one, with 640 posts filed, and special sections set up for coverage of the devastating tsunami of 2004, and the political excitement of this year’s General Election, not to mention being asked to write for Channel 4 News. The amount written, though, only reflects the amount that’s happened this year – it’s been incredibly busy, with news events covering the broadest possible spectrum of emotion.
On another subject entirely, I’ve conducted several experiments with advertising on the site this year, one of which is still ongoing. I’m happy to report that, for the first time, the site has generated enough money to cover costs during 2005, and that’s something about which we can all be glad, as it will continue to allow me to innovate and introduce new features to the site.
On the subject of new features… at the beginning of 2005, there was only one way to access the site – visiting it at sjhoward.co.uk using a standard web browser. Now, there are many more ways of getting your fix: You can get us on your mobile, on your mp3 player, and in your email inbox to name just three, in addition to the traditional browsing method.
On the technical side, I started the year with Blogger and finished it with WordPress, following the ‘big move’ in January. And some exciting news: As of today, the site is running on the all-new WordPress 2.0. This should make the site faster and more reliable, and certainly does give me more to play with, in a more intuitive way, backstage.
Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of my visitors, readers, advertisers, and others, for your support during 2005. With you, it’s been a great year for the site, but without you, the site is nothing. Thank you so much for your continuing support.
This post was filed under: Miscellaneous, Site Updates.