Happy Blogiversary To Me

(bumped to the top for the week. There's new stuff below)

Somehow, I've been doing this blog for five years. I can hardly get my mind around that reality.

As of today, 248,078 people have visited the site, generating 290,957 page views. That's about 110,000 unique visitors this year, which is a new record. The site keeps growing, and I thank every single person who makes this site a part of their day. It's truly an honor.

Last year I ran a little experiment on Blogiversary Week. This hobby takes up a ridiculous amount of my time, and while I'm happy to do my part as an engaged citizen, there's precious little reward for all the time reading, organizing, emailing, and doing the leg work to make this blog happen. I don't do this for money, but I do believe that there is some value here, and maybe you feel the same way.

The donation button in the right-hand column links to my Paypal account. If that doesn't work, my Paypal name is d_dayen-at-yahoo-dot-com...

(I deleted the donate button in this post because it didn't work even though it used the exact same code as the one on the right-hand side. The one in the right-hand column appears to work. Also, you know, my Paypal name.)

I don't want to put on my public radio hat, but if you feel like this is a good place to spend part of your day, consider dropping a few coins in my account. My goal is to outraise Roland Burris' entire fundraising total for the first quarter of this year: $845. I think it's reachable. Ultimately, we have to build models of sustainable activism, so that we have people committed full-time to progressive causes. Fundraising drives for low-dollar donations are an example of how we get there. So I hope you can participate in my funding drive this week. Thanks so much.

dave

Happy Blogiversary To Me

(bumped to the top throughout the day. New stuff below.)

This site is four years old today, and to briefly segue into a "State of the Blog Address," the past year was tremendously successful. As of today 138,984 have visited the site, with 164,485 page views, according to sitemeter stats. Last year at this time, the numbers were 57,765 uniques and 69,771 page views, which means I dwarfed the previous numbers for the past three years combined. Not to mention that I am fortunate enough to get my stuff out on much bigger sites than this one, like Calitics and Hullabaloo. I truly feel honored to be a part of this community and the overall progressive movement, and thanks to everyone who comes to this little piece of the universe to read my meanderings.

I also want to engage in a little experiment on this blogiversary week. This hobby takes up a tremendous amount of my time. I wrote over 3,200 posts this year. Some might call it an unhealthy obsession; those people would be everyone who knows me. It's actually not the writing (I write pretty quickly) but the reading, the researching, the email, the organizing and the offline stuff that takes up all the time. It's great that I'm in the position to do it, but outside a scattered set of Blogads and some other minor revenue streams I get little personal financial reward from this. I do this out of a love of country (despite, oddly, the fact that I hate America) and a penchant for personal expression, but I also feel there's at least some intrinsic value in what I do. And what I've learned over the years is that unless you ask for something you're not likely to get it.

So I'm going to do a blog fundraiser this week. I have a Paypal address that you can access at this link:

I'll put the donate button on the side column as well.

This is a movement that has its roots in a group of people doing it as a labor of love. That's just not all that sustainable and can quickly lead to burnout. If you read the site, if you appreciate what I do, I would be very grateful if you threw a few shekels my way so I can continue to do it at the same high level. Thanks so much. It's a sincere pleasure to be able to communicate with you all on a daily basis. And we're doing the work that needs to be done to take our country back.

dave

Happy Blogiversary To Me

I started this site three years ago. Since then, I've had, according to sitemeter, 57,765 unique visitors and served 69,771 pages (plus a few more because I don't think I put a traffic tracker on right away). Last year that number was 16,000 visitors and 20,000 pages. So it's been a good year. Based on current stats, next year will only get better.

People have this view that blogging is just this fun little diversion where you talk about what your dog ate or what movie you saw last night. This site started as a diversion, maybe a post a day. This is my 3,635th post, which averages out to about 3 1/2 a day, but I'd guess that has gone up to 7 or 8 a day this year. For political blogging, in this age when the news never stops, it's much deeper and richer, and I feel like the collected output of this online journal represents a public policy education that outstrips any political science class I've ever had. I do this because I have a love of country and a desire to see it work for the greatest number of people. It can be tiring, to be sure. You sometimes can feel overwhelmed, a case of information overload. But in the 3-year history of this site I've only taken one extended break, for about two weeks after Hurricane Katrina because it was just getting too big.

(By the way, just so I can add some news into this post, FEMA is asking for money back from students who they initially encouraged to apply for assistance. That's all class. They decide after the fact that they were being too generous, and ask for money back? Seems like they're trying to recoup the fruits of their own incompetence. Ahh, life in the Bush Administration...)

This next year should be great, it'll start with a bang, as next weekend is the California Democratic Party convention. I'm going to try and bring you as much color and flavor of the big meeting, which will feature speeches by every Presidential candidate but Biden and Gravel. I'll also get a sense of how the Party is progressing all over the state. So stay tuned.

Anyway, I'm going on and on, but I wanted to thank everyone who's stopped by over the years, including my precious few regular commenters (start commenting, people!). This started out with maybe 10 hits a day, and even then I couldn't believe that people found me. Now we're cruising at over 200 unique visitors a day during the week, and even though that pales in comparison to the big boys, it knocks me out to think about it. When I did stand-up more, it would be an event to play to a crowd of 200. Now that's the daily average. It's humbling to me, and I sincerely thank you.