Saturday, June 27, 2009

Thoughts about this journal as it aproaches 1000 entries

Bruces's Journal will hit 1000 entries within a day or two. Since I have time on this Saturday moring, I'll write entry #998 with my thoughts about this journal.

Blogging has become very popular in the Web 2.0 era. There are probably millions of blogs (a shortened version of weblog) that are out there. As I reported a few weeks ago, 95% of them are abandoned evidently since the writer just lost interest.

There are different types of blogs. They can be about news events, political points of view, and personal experiences. I have chosen the latter approach.

My first entry was on October 15, 2005 when AOL offered its subscribers a place to publish blogs. In October 2008 Bruce's Journal made the transition to Blogger, a service of Google. At that point its address became http://bigtownman.blogspot.com which likely still works. Since Google sells domain names at $10/year, I used http://www.bruceslutsky.com as the major name for my journal. In August 2008 I started a work related journal at http://njitbruce.blogspot.com.

I always have to remember that anyone can read either journal so I have to remember to be careful what I write. I try not be be too personal in this journal. Certainly I have frustrations at work, but I will not write about them in either journal. I have been guilty of a few minor indiscretions and I thank people for pointing them out.

Here are some of the major topics of Bruce's Journal over the 1000 postings:
  • Bob Dylan
  • The Mets
  • Going back into past stages of my life
  • Radio
  • Songs of the day
  • Family activities

Since its inception Bruce's journal has received about 18,400 hits. This includes my own accessions When the journal made the transition to Blogger, I used Google Analytics to track usage. The post that got the most hits was a review of a new DVD about Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour. It got so many hits since it was linked to Expecting Rain, a very popular Dylan fan site. The next two popular postings were about WABC Rewound. These entries were very high when I did a Google search on the phrase WABC Rewound.

I don't know how many different people have read Bruce's Journal. I am sure many just found it once as a result using Google or other search engine. I don't know what percentage of the readers actually know me. I know several radio enthusiast friends and one colleague from NJIT read it regularly. From Google Analytics, I can determine where the readers are located. There is one reader from Stamford, CT whom I don't know. The journal is also imported into my Facebook feed and I know many of my Facebook friends read it. This number is not counted by Google Analytics.

Very few people make comments to the journal directly, but several people have done so on Facebook.

I am happy to say that almost all my experience with my journal have been positive. There was only one individual who made some negative comments about me which I deleted. He disagreed with me on a radio related issue, but attacked my by making comments about my family which were just none of his business.

I will keep positing and hope you will keep reading.

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