statistics – Streaming thru America

It happened early yesterday morning, although I was unaware until I awoke. I’d kept tabs from time to time, and I knew I was inching closer. And while I anticipated the result sooner than later, there was no predicting when.

It first crossed my mind earlier this summer when I began recording my travels through Southern Africa and the Great Lakes. Little by little, the notion that new posts were finding a newer audience, and past posts were being mined from archives was reassuring. But it wasn’t until I returned home, and caught up on summer highlights from my travels that I began realizing the possibility.

And it remained elusive until an alert on my phone notified me of the news earlier in the day.

After 2 years and 7 months, after 320 posts, after more than 187,000 written words, after over 5,600 uploaded photographs, after 23,000-plus visits and nearly 45,000 views, I had finally amassed my 2,000th WordPress follower.

However, to pass this milestone, it also felt at times like I was carrying this millstone.

What was once a convenient means to share the view from my Airstream with family and friends, had blossomed into a creative umbrella for me after the Discover editors saw fit to feature my blog. The initial response was seismic…yet emphemeral. While I initially gained new readers from the exposure, their enthusiasm seemed to fade over time. My followers were moving on. Alas, fewer views and fewer likes.

My confidence was soon replaced by self-doubt. Had I failed to keep things fresh? Had I run out of fascinating places to visit and report? Were my destinations and musings no longer blog-worthy? I also began questioning my purpose as a blogger. Was I a photographer who writes, or a writer who photographs?

My immediate, albeit measured response was to shape my waning success by constructing posts with wider appeal, and sharing them with the 145 countries that once signaled interest in my blog.

I diversified the content too, choosing to dabble in humor (April Fools PSA) poetic expressions (A Sleeping Bear Dunes Ditty), art and music criticism (Joshua Tree–The Album and the National Park), political commentary (Anatomy of an Email), personal relationships (Happy Birthday, Dad!), and even trying my hand at serializing a book (Uncertainty: Prologue).

I must confess to moments of obsessing over numbers–thinking about ways to boost my online productivity, with guarantees for:

First page ranking on Google, Yahoo, and Bing
Improving organic traffic
Securing my website from Google Penguin updates 4.0
Increasing my conversion rate
Targeting future local markets

…but then I rejected the notion outright! Why would I pay to acquire an audience? After all, this isn’t a business where I have to drive masses of asses to my site.

Bottom line–I no longer believe I have an obligation to entertain/inform my followers. Indeed, I only have a desire to continue expressing myself, and I’m hopeful my followers will allow me–however and whenever–and still support me.

In the meantime, I’ll quietly celebrate my small victory in fulfilling an unexpected goal before moving on to the next challenge.

Here’s to the next 2,000 followers.

P.S. I’m a writer AND a photographer!

It’s official! After creating 201 posts over the past 18 months, my blog has reached a new level of readership that defies credulity.

Two days ago, I posted Chapter 8 of “Uncertainty”, a somber reflection of survival based on a true story during the Holocaust (which I encourage everyone to read from the prologue going forward). I was feeling rather secure about the characters, the writing technique, and the progression of the story that I’ve been serializing for the past month, and looking forward to plotting out the balance of Part One.

However, today I checked the current status to see how well (or not) the post has been received, and to my dismay, I’ve discovered that the views for Uncertainty: Chapter Eight have been less than flattering.

In fact, the post was credited with -2,147,483,648 views to date…maybe an all-time record for poorest performance ever for a new post by anyone affiliated with WordPress!

For a moment, I didn’t know what to think. And then a flood of emotions took over. I began to doubt whether the writing I was producing had offended or alienated readers to the point where 2,147,483,648 readers were letting me know that they had “unseen” my post!

While I will admit that my 201 musings to date are not intended for everyone (and most likely an acquired taste at best), I was not prepared to accept that almost half the literate world wished to “unview” my blog.

Here are the facts. According to Stastista (a statistics portal combining statistics and studies from more than 22,500 sources), in a world of approximately 7.6 billion people, about 26% of our global population is below 15 years of age.

That’s equivalent to 5.624 billion people worldwide over 15 years-old, and our new baseline for purposes of this investigation.

Coupled with UNESCO’s declaration of global literacy rate of 86%–which amounts to 4.837 billion adults (aged 15 years and older) who are validated as being able to read and write–

…I have reconciled that I’ve lost any chance of attracting 44.4% of the literate world to my website.

Of course, I’m completely dependent upon WordPress for the accuracy of their calculus. But if their numbers are on target, then I must consider the other 55.6% of literate adults on this planet and appeal to their inherent curiosity, so that one day they might consider the possibility of visiting my blog and checking out the archives or what’s new.

In the meantime, I will continue to write for my audience of one, or two, or however many others (1980 followers and counting) who support me, and not focus on the negative 2,147,483,648 who don’t know what they’re missing…until they come around.

To my loyal readers, stay tuned for Uncertainty: Chapter Nine.

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