Sunday, February 09, 2014

Wondering about the written word and who reads them

As writers, words are a means in which to share our feelings and commentary on life in general. Frequently and for me, it's something spotted on the Web that begs personal elucidation or perhaps the sharing of a personal experience. Sort of a means in which to clear and clean my brain of accumulated clutter.

Writing output is only as interesting as the readers who drop by the blog for a change of pace or perhaps fall upon it accidentally, but decide to hang around to see what's it's all about. All this is to make the point that today, upon conducting my daily check-in, I discovered to my surprise that there was merely one - 1 - lonely page view. This reality has caused me to wonder about the sudden loss of interest in this blog

In the way of background information, my inspiration comes from multiple sources. Sometimes it's a story or article on one of the news sites that catches my eye or a personal experience that I feel would be of interest to the public, who ever they may be. It would be interesting to know who reads this blog if any readers feel the urge to own up that they drop by from time-to-time. But I digress.

Blogs that received the most attention focused on the royal nuptials of Kate and William and why my wedding invitation was not in the mail, what to wear for the occasion just in case an invitation ever did arrive (still waiting) and how to conduct oneself in front of royalty. Obviously, this struck a familiar chord with people.

Related to this is in the "if ever" and "just in case" category are pieces of etiquette advice offered by Debretts, "the" authority when it comes to decorum for all occasions. You know - how to hold a teacup properly...whether it would be socially acceptable to use a cloth napkin dipped in a water glass to remove a clothing stain. Those sort of musings.

Another subject that received a lot of attention for a long time was the still missing (to the best of my knowledge) Wookie the cat, whose owner was threatened with a fine on Christmas Eve no less, for putting up posters of his beloved pet. Another biggie was the ever ponder-some issue of why the chicken crossed the street. Lots of readers were interested in chickens raison d'etre and motivation for this move. Actually, I've never personally witnessed a chicken crossing a road, period. Perhaps it's merely one of those urban legends or something. But I digress. Again.

All of this is leading up to pondering the issue of my declining blog readership. Then again, perhaps it's not surprising. According to www.wpvirtuoso.com, who labels itself as "the best Wordpress blogging magazine out there",  there are more than 152,000,000 blogs on the Internet. Furthermore:

- most people read blogs more than once per day
- 13% inspire a purchase
- 17% discover a product or service
- 19% get support/answers

Morning is the most popular time when people read blogs and morning blog reading starts at 7 a.m. and peaks at 10 a.m.
A new blog is created somewhere in the world every half-second.

Given all these numbers, the challenge is greater to find subjects that will grab the attention of passers-by. It's all a numbers game in the end, anyway.