April recap

May 2, 2009

- See all 763 of my articles

Traffic

Another month is in the books.  We surpassed 100 all-time posts, and there were 35 articles during the month of April.  We’re not getting a ton of traffic, but we do have a handful of regular visitors and a few others who drop by after seeing my comments in other folks’ blogs (notably LazyManAndMoney, ManVsDebt, FinancialNut, MasterYourCard, Purple Row, and SheInChina).  If you’re  a regular reader, leave a comment to introduce yourself.  I know who some of you are (howdy, Mandy and Mary), but I have no idea as to the indentity of others.  I’m intrigued by some of the regulars from other countries.  If you’re multi-lingual, it would be cool to see you introduce yourself in your first language and then provide a translation in English.

If you’re someone who dropped by from another blog, try us out for a week.  We don’t scratch a niche like most blogs, but have a mixture of topics during the week.  Be sure to check out Fiction Friday – I will post an original short story (written by me for this sole purpose) on Fridays.

Finances

It’s a good thing that I write for the pleasure of writing, instead of money.  Ad revenue for the month was $11.50 – or about 30 cents for each article we posted.  I won’t bother to calculate the hourly rate on that – needless to say, it’s rather low.  Hopefully traffic will pick up a bit in the coming months and cause upward movement on the financial side as well.  It would be nice to be able to buy a Pepsi or two with the ad revenue 🙂

Guest writers

I’ve had the pleasure of having a few guest writers during the month.  One of the guests became a staff writer for us (more about that later) and another is likely to have other articles appear on the site in the future.  I have actively pursued a few other people to write articles for the “a day in the life” series, which I personally enjoy reading.  I have received positive responses from several people, although I do not yet have any new segments in my hand.  I believe we’ll see a few of them in May, though.  I’m looking forward to a guest article that a fellow blogger is going to write.

The future

So, what does the future hold?  Well, it is likely that we will have at least one article on every single day from this point forward!  When I was the sole writer, it was sometimes difficult to write 7+ articles while balancing the blog with work and family life.  However, I am getting some help in this regard.  Johnny Goodman will be joining us as the weekly sports writer and Bob Inferapels will be writing a weekly entertainment column.  Note – although these are pen names, they do correspond to actual real people – they are not simply other factions of my mind.  The article’s byline will identify the author.

RSS and Twitter

Some of you have no doubt seen the  “subscribe via RSS” at the top left of the screen and wondered what on earth it is.  I won’t go into the technical details of RSS.  From a user perspective, RSS gives you a “one stop shop” to get updates for sites that are updated periodically (blogs, news sites, etc).  Think of this as a bulletin board – you tell people you want to know that they are doing (by subscribing to their RSS feed).  The next time you go to the bulletin board (RSS reader) you see all of the new articles.  Click on the subscribe via RSS link to get more information.  I’m not an RSS expert, but Google’s reader seem to do a good job.  If you follow several blogs, RSS is a great way to keep on top of them.

You can also get blog notifications on Twitter.  The Twitter updates will simply contain the title of the new article and a link to the article.  That is all.  No tweets about what I ate for breakfast or mini-rants about the moron who cut me off in traffic 🙁  Honestly, RSS is probably a better option for most people, but I decide to set up Twitter in case anyone wanted it.

Random factoid for the month

Baseball writer/analyst/god Bill James, who was largely responsible for a dramatic shift in the way that baseball players are analyzed, has a second passion – true crime.  This probably seems like an odd combination, but the weird thing is that I also have a deep interest in true crime.  If I am ever able to slip past Mr. James’ security staff (probably filled with ex Navy Seals and former CIA agents) and get a private chat with him, it will be nice to know that we can have a nice chat about serial killers if we run out of baseball topics.

Thanks, Luv, and Follow

I would like to thank everyone for their assistance with the blog.  This includes guest writers, staff writers, folks who write comments, the readers, folks who provide web hosting and technical assistance (Lazy Man), and people who have critiqued the blog for me (notably, Phil Ossifer).  We look forward to improving the reader experience in the future.  You can always email me at Kosmo@ObservingCasually.com with any questions or comments you might have.

In an effort to reward our commenters, we have implement the CommentLuv and Do-Follow plug-ins.  CommentLuv allows you to select a recent post from your own blog to be linked at the bottom of your comment.  This is why readers see link to the blogs of commenters such as Baker of ManVsDebt.

Do-Follow removes the “no-follow” tag that is typically affixed to links within the comment section of blogs.  The gist is that implementing “do-follow” will boost your your site’s Google ranking.  You don’t need to do anything to take advantage of this; it’s all under the hood, so to speak.

Neither of these plug-ins do anything for me (at least directly); I implemented them to reward the commenters who help make the blog more fun to read.

9 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. Baker @ ManVsDebt
    May 02, 2009 @ 19:08:25

    Kosmo,

    Enjoy the blog man. I back up the claim that new people should give it a try for a week! I’m excited to see some of the regular work from the other writers, as well.

    Looking forward to having a great May together!

    Baker @ ManVsDebt’s last blog post..Weekend Reading: Mini-Marathon Edition!

    Reply

  2. kosmo
    May 02, 2009 @ 20:50:28

    Thanks, Baker. I think it takes a bit for someone to get a feel for what the blog is all about. I’ve tried to explain it a bit in the “About this blog” page.

    http://www.thesoapboxers.com/about/

    Reply

  3. MJ Doyle
    May 02, 2009 @ 21:33:14

    I would love to have the option for receiving updates by email. Do you think you’ll be adding that?

    Also, I’m a writer and would be interested in writing a guest post for this blog. Contact me if you think I’d be a good fit.

    MJ Doyle’s last blog post..Beat Your Procrastination by Releasing Your Clutter

    Reply

  4. kosmo
    May 02, 2009 @ 22:33:51

    MJ Doyle – Ok, I’ve added the ability to receive updates via email. I’ll touch base with you about a possible guest post when I get a few free minutes.

    Reply

  5. MJ Doyle
    May 02, 2009 @ 22:46:13

    Great – I just signed up!

    MJ Doyle’s last blog post..Beat Your Procrastination by Releasing Your Clutter

    Reply

  6. mary
    May 06, 2009 @ 20:49:49

    I’ve been an observing casually observer from the get go. I’m from Ma. and got lucky finding
    a talented writer through my scrabble addiction! I thoroughly enjoy all the fun, facts and fiction from Scott and his guest writers.
    Nice to meet everyone!

    Reply

  7. kosmo
    May 07, 2009 @ 13:53:11

    Thanks for the support, Mary. I realize that the work on the site has taken some time away from Wordscraper. (sigh). The sacrifices that we must make in life …

    🙂

    Reply

  8. cool games
    Aug 16, 2009 @ 06:33:54

    Cool ^^ commentluv is my favourite plugin. Now I get a lot of related quality comments on my blog and it really motivates people to comment a lot! I like it 🙂

    Reply

  9. Cartoon Games
    Mar 19, 2010 @ 19:08:41

    Yo cool games, I agree with you. It’s a great plugin and I love it! Works really well.
    .-= Cartoon Games´s last blog ..Mario Ghosthouse =-.

    Reply

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