The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,900 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 48 trips to carry that many people.
If you have any suggestions for how to make this blog better…. let me know!
I’ve been told that I should try to keep my posts shorter, a suggestion that I agree with and try to honor… But in many cases what makes the posts long are the quotes in the body and/or the notes to the post. This blog is as much a way for me to preserve and offer (on the web) some of my favorite sources as it is a platform for me to say anything original… so I probably will continue in my verbosity…
It has been suggested by one of my favorite readers (she admits that she usually only gets through the first paragraph) to post the blog as a podcast. In fact, the recent post “holy crap” served as the basis for a class I led. I realized that I base my delivery approach of my blog on shmoozen from Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, the mashgiach at Beer Yaakov who would bring out a stack of books (sefarim) which contained the sources that formed the basis for his talk. All the books had page-markers duly inserted and he would march through the smooze one source at a time. If you could re-construct the sources then all you had to do was connect the dots! his shmoozen were all delivered audibly so maybe I will try to deliver some of the posts in parallel as podcasts…
In the meantime, thanks for your readership and happy new year from Hong Kong!
Geoff,
I think you should keep it exactly the same. I don’t agree with a lot BUT I enjoy it immensely when I get to read it!! Hatzlacha Rabbo in the New Year..
Yehuda
thanks reb yehuda … your comments online and offline and especially your friendship and support meant the world to me!
I dont think you should at all be concerned about length. Its all about content, which you have plenty of, dont be afraid to share it, Edward Jacobs Design Facebook eddie@edwardjacobsdesign.com Israel Cell: +972 (0)54 55 11 843 USA Cell: 917 749 8400 International: 929 255 1622 Skype: mishkenot
Thanks Eddie for the positive reinforcement 🙂
I too am not overly concerned about length. I like seeing the sources and I appreciate the effort it takes to choose good quotes that really give you a sense of the original source. You may want to try to generate more comments. Many people read blogs because they want to comment or they want to read the comments. Some of the best Jewish blogs out there have really interesting comment sections (FrumSatire, OOTB). But comments are a pain — a real pain — to keep productive.
You may want to comment more often on other blogs. Your insights will hopefully be interesting enough for new readers to want to click on your name and see what else you have to offer them. To win success in the social world you basically need to circulate and keep talking to different people at the party. You can’t assume that people will somehow come to you. A third idea might be to team up with like-minded bloggers, if you have any, and create a blog with a variety of voices and a combined readership. Hatzlacha!
Wow! What a thoughtful and helpful comment… I will certainly try and implement. Since I received so many comments on this posting… maybe, in addition to your sugesstions, I need to ask more questions of my readership too…