Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Genea-Musings is a 3-year old today! - some musings

It seems like just yesterday that I started my Randy's Musings blog - here is the first post on 15 April 2006. I explained the change to Genea-Musings in my first anniversary post on 15 April 2007. In my two-year-old post, I showed a screen shot of the early blog page and showed a graph of my traffic in the past year.

After three years of Randy's Musings and Genea-Musings, this is post number 2,818. Over 1,096 days, that averages out to be 2.57 posts per day. In the past year, I've written 1,036 posts, or 2.83 posts per day. I think that the most was 7 posts in one day and I've had many days with zero posts (usually when on vacation).

Not every post has been a work of meaning or pride. It's hard not to make misteaks in content or spellking (thankfully, Blogger's spell check is working again). I've learned to express opinions after thinking hard about it rather than in a moment of pique or sarcasm. I try not to criticize the work of others, but sometimes it has to be done by somebody. This has become a labor of fun and love - I enjoy hearing from all of my readers. I wake up each morning wondering what I'm going to write about during the day.

My readership has increased each year. Since I started this blog, I have had over 230,000 unique visitors (these can be multiple visits per day by the same reader) and over 340,000 page views. Those numbers have doubled in the last year. My statistics indicate that this blog currently has about 500 unique visitors a day, with an average of about 740 page views. In addition, about 250 subscribe via email using Feedburner, and about 50 subscribe via Bloglines. I don't have a count for other feeds and blog readers.

This is a traffic chart for the last three years (since July 2006 when I subscribed to StatCounter). The three lines are Page Loads (green), Unique Visitors (blue), and Returning Visitors (orange).



You will note a distinct uptick in readership in late 2008. I attribute this to gaining many Facebook Friends and Twitter-folks that read my "instant messages" on Twitter and Facebook and click on a link to a blog post. Social networking works!

What lies ahead for Genea-Musings? I'm not sure... it takes two to three hours each day to feed, and I've posted about all of my elusive ancestors, the three new software programs, almost all of my tombstone photos, and many family photographs. Gee, I'm gonna haveta write something original! Genea-Musings may move to more commentary and fewer personal research items.

What lies ahead for Genealogy? The future of Genealogy 2.0 is limitless, I think, and I'm looking forward to the new web sites coming soon (they say!) - like http://www.worldhistory.com/, http://www.genseek.com/, http://www.mygenshare.com/ and new FamilySearch, among others. What else should I know about?

One of the very best uses of genealogy blogs is to act as a town crier - saying "hey, look at this," or "watch out for this." There comes a time when every genealogist is overwhelmed by "info-glut" - too much information for a full mind. Genea-bloggers can help sort the genea-wheat from the genea-chaff and guide other researchers to useful web sites that provide useful and helpful information. That's one of the functions that I, and many other genea-bloggers, try to fulfill. I will continue to do that as best I can.

In the three years since I've been genealogy blogging, I've seen a wonderful genealogy blogging community form, grow, mature and blossom into a caring and sharing community. A social network of Geneabloggers has grown and flourished on Facebook, and spawned the Geneabloggers blog, and both provide an encouraging and supportive group of fellow genea-bloggers. I'm proud of what we "unknown genealogists" have accomplished over several years - this is really a great example of taking genealogy writing to the common person.

Genealogy book, software and database companies also recognize the potential power of genealogy blogs to reach readers, and have courted genealogy bloggers (e.g., the Blogger Day in Provo in January that I attended) and become more communicative and collaborative in the process.

Many of us are not connected to the "traditional genealogy" world of conferences, magazines, and societies, and some of us have entered into that world with magazine columns or articles, talks at local, regional or national conferences, etc. The "traditional genealogy" world realizes that some genealogy bloggers are the society officers, web site columnists and magazine article writers of the future, and is nurturing them. I am one example - I was recently appointed the "Genealogy 2.0" (a new column) columnist for FORUM, the quarterly magazine of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. My first column appears in the Spring 2009 issue, which should be in mailboxes this month.

It's time for my Genea-Musings birthday cake, and I can hardly wait to open my birthday present. I'll have to show it off when I get it. Genea-Musings is a toddler now! Where's my party hat?

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randy,

Happy Blogiversary!!!

Donna
(PS - My word verification is "recanth" but I refuse to recanth my blogiversary wishes.

Anonymous said...

Happy Blogiversary! I'm a relatively new reader but I really enjoy reading your blog! Keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

Blogratulations and ancelebrations.

BeNotForgot said...

Happy Blogoversary from Texas! vle

footnoteMaven said...

Randy:

Happy Blogiversary! No day in the blogosphere of GeneaBloggers would be the same without you.

From musings, to coined words and phrases, to your face on Facebook, to your Tweets; no day is complete without you!

-fM

Judith Richards Shubert said...

Happy Blogiversary! I have learned a LOT from you and your postings!

DearMYRTLE said...

Sure am glad you decided to split your grandfathering time up so we can learn from your excellent blog posts, Randy. Looking forward to your column in the FORUM as well.

WTG, and HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY!

Myrt

M. Diane Rogers said...

Happy Third! and congratulations on your new gig with the "Forum".

Jasia said...

Happy Blogiversary Randy!

I never tire of reading your blog posts. You do such a good job of going above and beyond your own personal family history to share technology and resources we can all benefit from.

I also appreciate your pearls of wisdom. You are often the moderating voice in online controversies. Thank you for that!

Most of all I want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your wonderful sense of humor. Rarely does a day go by that you don't make me smile.

You're the best, Randy! I'm looking forward to the next 3 years!!!

Evelyn Yvonne Theriault said...

Montreal sends you a bonne fete, Randy@

iPentimento | Genealogy and History said...

Happy Blogiversary to you and your blog Randy. May it live long and prosper. :)

Amanda E. Perrine said...

Happy Blogiversary! Here's to many more:-)

Diana Ritchie said...

Happy Blogiversary!! I am so impressed with what you write...and shhh, please don't tell the others, but when I see something new on Genea-Musings in my blog reader I always so straight there and read it first blithely skipping over everyone else!

Cindy said...

Happy Happy Happy Blogiversary to Genea-Musings Randy! You really do great work and thanks for sharing all of your wisdom and wit!

Miriam Robbins said...

Happy Blogoversary and congratulations on your FORUM assignment.

If Dick Eastman and Pat Richley are the grandparents of the genealogy bloggers, you are definitely the favorite uncle!

I look forward to many more posts in the future!

Janet Hovorka said...

Many Many Many congratulations Randy. So glad to have been able to get to know you and learn so much from you. You do great work.
Janet

Bill West said...

Happy Blogiversary, Randy.
You're one of my favorite bloggers and one of those who inspired me to try my own hand at this blogging
"stuff".

I'm looking forward to many more years of reading Genea-Musings!

GrannyPam said...

Congratulations on three years of excellence. I'm glad for spell check too, but it misses more of my mistakes than it does yours...

Becky Wiseman said...

A belated "Happy Blogiversary". And, Congratulations, Randy, on your new gig! Cool.

SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI said...

Hi, Randy. A very happy blogoversary! Where would we be without you? Your Forum "gig" sounds great!

Best wishes and may we celebrate again together in another three years!

Schelly Talalay Dardashti
Tracing the Tribe
http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com

Steve Danko said...

Happy Blogiversary, Randy, and congratulations on your new column!

Steve

Mel said...

Happy Blog-a-versary, Randy! May you have many more posts!!!

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

Happy Blogiversary Randy and congrats on the new column!

geneabloggers said...

I know I am late with my good wishes but I wanted to say that you have been a constant inspiration to me and other genea-bloggers! Thanks for what you do and happy blogoversary!