[thenightwriterblog] The Night Writer: What happened to my fur coat?

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Posted by The Night Writer:
What happened to my fur coat?
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1195171444.shtml


   Man, talk about your [1]punctuated equilibrium (if you go for that
   sort of thing). This blog had been cruising along for awhile as a
   Slithering Reptile in the [2]TTLB blog-ranking ecoystem for I don't
   know how long when all of a sudden last week I noticed I had morphed
   or "evolved" into a Marauding Marsupial, completely bypassing the
   intermediate phylum of Flappy Bird and Adorable Rodent. I couldn't
   figure out how this happened because TTLB essentially measures links
   and I hadn't had a sudden burst of linkage -- at least none that
   showed up in my TTLB report. I just assumed that global warming had
   killed off a bunch of blogs ahead of me and I'd been promoted simply
   for outlasting them.
   Now, just as spasmodically, I'm back to reptile status. I don't think
   I would have noticed except that I felt a draft.
   Honestly, even after two-plus years of doing this blog, I don't
   understand how a lot of the protocols and accessories work on this
   great big inner-web thingy. For example, sometime last spring I
   started getting 300-400 visitors a day, day after day. I didn't see
   any reason for the sudden surge of fans, but I noticed that my Site
   Meter report was showing most of these to be from Google images; in
   other words people searching for photos. Some of the images I'd posted
   were getting a lot of attention (in particular a close-up photo of the
   Mall Diva's bruised and naked knee that was getting all kinds of
   traffic from Asia). After this kept up for awhile it just wasn't that
   interesting for me check the Site Meter at the end of the day because
   the numbers didn't have that much to do with anything I'd written -
   and given my irregular posting schedule the past several (intense)
   months - that was probably just as well.
   Now the image links have gone away, too, just about as quickly as they
   appeared. While my "daily visits" average has crashed big time, I
   actually like this better; I didn't feel as if I'd "earned" the
   traffic. It was actually kind of de-motivating. While traffic isn't
   the reason I blog, it does offer a measure of feedback to indicate if
   what I'm writing is resonating with anyone. I don't know if I'd keep
   blogging if I got 5 or 10 or 20 visitors a day, but I do know that 400
   visitors a day didn't make me feel more like blogging.
   Oh well, that's enough navel-gazing (actually, I don't think reptiles
   have navels). I think the real reason I blog is so I can go to
   Keegan's -- and I'm heading there tonight!

References

   1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
   2. http://truthlaidbear.com/ecosystem.php