Popularity

I started off this blog basically as a way to "think out loud" about some issues of interest to me. Unlike a lot of other blogs this one doesn't really have an overarching "theme". I'll blog on philosophy or sport or art or theology or just about anything really. I suspect that this makes it harder to build up a readership. If you're really interested in one thing I have blogged on once but not the rest of the stuff I have blogged on then you're probably not going to want to read my blog. That's fine by me. I'm happy if I don't have any regular readers. Back in August 2008 when I posted my "almost-first" post (i.e. my first post after a false start to the blog) and had a readership of zero I had this to say:

I am under no illusion as to the significance of this blog or indeed my life in general. Blogs come and go, people come and go, the world keeps turning and God keeps working his purpose out as year succeeds to year. In the grand scheme of things my life here on earth and this blog are fairly insignificant. In other words, if no one reads it I won't be too disappointed.

And that's still the case today. I don't write what I do it with a view to becoming popular. And I'm not the slightest bit interested in trying to earn money from this blog via advertising (although I've got nothing against those who do place ads on their blog).

Rarely if ever do I get feedback on anything I post here (most posts have zero comments!) so until fairly recently I was completely ignorant about the number of people reading this blog. Then I came across this nifty application which records the number and locations of hits to my blog. Of course technically speaking this still doesn't tell me the number of people reading my blog. Someone can of course visit the blog without reading it.

After adding this feature I still only had a paltry number of hits but I now suddenly find myself in unfamiliar territory, shooting up the charts of popularity. I suspect that the sudden increase in web traffic has come because I posted a comment or two at a very popular blog and curious readers of those comments then clicked on my link there and wandered over here to my blog. What's particularly interesting is where the hits are from. As well as visitors from various English speaking countries I have even had hits from places such as Poland, Chile, Nigeria and Tunisia to name a few! While I know a few people in Poland and it's possible that one of them clicked on a link to this blog from my facebook profile, I don't think I know anyone in Chile, Nigeria or Tunisia. I am truly humbled that complete strangers -- wherever they are in the world -- would want to read my ramblings.

Visits as of 8 November, A.D. 2009