Sunday, October 16, 2011

100 or 10,000?



This has nothing to do with movies, but with blogging.

I originally started blogging in order to publish my writing, which wasn't going to be published any other way.  At the same time, I didn't think anyone would really read my insane ramblings, at least in this life.

So when I created a blog, it was only to speak to one topic.  When I wanted to write on another topic, I created another blog.  Right now I have more than 30 "blogs".  But I don't consider them all REAL blogs.  For me, a real blog has to have at least a hundred posts.  It doesn't matter so much how many people read the thing, because my goal was publishing, not actually being read.  I know, that's weird, but, again, I really didn't think anyone would want to read my blogs.

Sometime last year, Blogger established stats for their blogs, and I started looking.  I was shocked how many people actually read my blog posts.  Some blogs got almost no traction, while others did reasonably well.  Frankly, considering that I didn't expect any readership, that was pretty good.

Then I started a blog on movies.

Frankly, this blog really took off after I posted on the summer art film, Malick's The Tree of Life.  I'm happy so many people read that post because the film was a revelation to me and I'm glad to share my vision of the film to others, especially those who left the film saying "WTF?"

Last week I realized that this blog is nearing 10,000 views.  Not only have none of my other blogs gotten that many views (the others are more theological or deal with poverty topics), none have taken off so quickly.  I only started posting here in March.

Then I found myself in a quandary.  My movie blog only had 91 posts.  So it was on the edge of getting 10,000 views but according to my basic definition, it didn't have enough posts to be considered a "real blog".  So this last week I worked at fixing that problem.

I updated some reviews I wrote earlier, posted those.  That brought me to 99 posts.  Today, this is post 100.  And today, the blog reached 10,000 views.  Thank you for reading my blog.


P.S. What would you like to see more of on this blog?  The movie reviews that are separated into categories, like my recent review of Red Beard?  Analyses of complex films, like the review of Tree of Life? Or would you like to see reviews of more recent films? Perhaps you like the personal stuff like my favorites?  What about discussions of groups of films like my recent three part discussion of thrillers?  Also, I've been thinking about a series on "Basic Films To Watch Before You Become a Film Buff"... any other ideas?  Any films you'd really like me to review?  Comment away!

3 comments:

  1. Congratulations!

    A series about basic films to watch before you become a film buff sounds like a great idea!

    I'd also love to read some more general non-film-specific musings about anything related to the world of movies. There's nothing wrong about reviews; they're the foundation of most movie blogs I follow and I write them myself. But it's nice to see them broken up once in a while by editorials, opinions and general rants.

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  2. Thanks-- especially for posting a link on your great site The Velvet Cafe!

    "Editorials, opinions and general rants"... hmmm. Isn't that what blogging is full of already? But I think I see what you mean-- break it up. I'll have to consider what flavor of movie-related rants I'd have in me...

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