12 November 2005 - 10:04am
So now it's been a year
Blogiversary? Anniblogary? Blogday?
On November 12 of last year, I started this site. I had no idea what to expect. My blogger site was but an obscure little thing with like 5 readers. Before that, I'd never blogged about anything but personal trivia, which was utterly boring -- to me and everyone else.
For mediagirl.org, I chose Drupal for the site software because of its flexibility. I'd hoped to build this into a community site, but since then it's kind of morphed into more of a group site, where 2-3 dozen women have blog posting access. (Thank you Matsu, ferdette, gballsout, Morgaine, Sour Duck, Pseudo-Adrienne, The Heretik, truthinboots, laurentayloris and everyone else for helping make mediagirl.org a worthwhile stop!)
[Helping to make Our Word succeed has been a nice extension of this initial desire, and I urge anyone looking for robust open women's discussion to go there.]
Some (boring) factoids:
I'm delighted that the traffic has grown here. Statcounter says we're averaging around 900 a day, but to be honest, that fluctuates quite a bit. The server logs say another 10,000 pages are viewed by crawlers and bots. The Feedburner counter has remained under 10, but the server logs say 186 people (or 'bots) are subscribed to the direct feed. Sitemeter says that the average visit for the past week lasted 1:36, which tells me that most people are actually reading what they find, which is a good thing, even if they aren't sticking around to read everything else -- or anything else.
But I'm under no illusions that the site's modest success is because I'm especially insightful or entertaining. More people stumble here from Google or Yahoo than from bookmarks or blogrolls. (Recent searches include "trailer clips of women oil wrestling"; "no knickers girl photos" (hello, England!); "signs of men on the down low" -- but also: "pain in ovary"; "pregnancy ERA television"; "male insecurity".) The site has won no awards (and actually I find all the "vote for me" posts to be rather obnoxious and sad.) Sometimes we've benefitted from a kindly link from Daou and Digby and Pandagon and other bigger and better blogs. And I'm sure having to scrub the database of multiple URL aliases for every page hasn't helped things. Still, every day we get 80-150 return visitors.
Thanks everyone for dropping by!
Enough about boring numbers. They count only for advertisers, ego lists and blogwhores who are afraid to link to smaller sites lest they lose their PageRank.
Getting to the point:
I'd really really like to know what you all think. I feel like I'm flying blind here most of the time. Traffic aside, is anyone getting anything out of what I'm writing here?
What do you like or dislike about mediagirl.org?
What should I/wewe focus on in this coming year? Please share your suggestions, recommendations, complaints, rants. (No, this isn't an invitation for trolls.) Would you like to see more on politics. (As if that were possible!) Less? More feminist stuff? More whimsy? More sarcasm? More pictures? Less?
I'd love to hear from you. (Comments are open for the next 30 days or so.)
media girl also blogs at other places.
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Comments
you've got an excellent site, and great writing from everyone. i value your insight into the issues of the day that concern us as women more than you might guess, and i feel as time passes you'll continue to grow. i also feel that the type growth your experiencing is perhaps more stable than some of the more recent ones we're all familar with.
keep up the excellent work.
as an aside, i've looked at the search phrases in a few of the Our Word referalls as you appear to have done. what a hoot!
That's how it feels so often. Nobody comments, except to tell me I'm full of shit. Maybe I should rename this site Message in a Bottle.
You know...It's always the ones that disagree that are the loudest.
I read most of the things you post on the site now that I have constant internet access...sometimes I don't comment because I have nothing to add, etc. I'm sure that many of the other hits/reads are similar.
I like your blog a lot...and other people do as well. I think that if I were you, I'd be proud of myself--I really hope you are proud with yourself. It sounds like you've had a steady amount of growth..and I imagine that will continue well into the future.
MG you do a beautiful job with your blog. I have definite blog-envy. In fact, maybe you could hire out as an advisor in helping others of us in the blog-world set up our blogs (?) no kidding.
Anyhow, keep on writing and posting. You are an inspiration to all of us.
Bob
Actually, in another life, I do web development. You can always inquire here. I try to keep business and politics separate, though, so that's why you don't see any ads or resumes posted here.
I appreciate the compliments!
MG is vastly, vastly underread and underappreciated. Mostly I read for posts related to repro rights, but MG covers the waterfront. One of the things that impresses me most is how fast you can pull a post together, complete with timely correlations to related issues.
I started sending your posts to one of our doctors, and now he's hooked on you. :)
moiv, your posts on Booman and Kos are the standard to which all else is measured. I'm flattered and embarrassed that you offer such high praise of this site, and can only say it would be even better if you'd share some of your insights here, too. You're the bees knees!
Seems to me you've made quite a bit of progress in one short year. Dr. Laniac's Laboratory just passed it's second blogiversary this week, having migrated my musings over from their original home on LoopyNews, which is having it's 4th anniversary next month. Yet it's really only this year that I've managed to build up a readership (and a lot of that is due to the IndyWeblogs group).
I guess it's a question of what you want to accomplish. I think you've got a fine site and you attract a decent amount of attention (Daou, etc.). Just keep doing what you're doing and don't worry about "shouting into the void". I suspect that by next year's blogiversary you'll not be worried about that.
Compared to the work you're doing on our elected officials, and the geegy stuff for the Indy 500, my stuff here is just petty selfishness. I'll keep going if you do. That's a good deal from my perspective!
Dear Media Girl,
Happy First Blogiversary! Your site is appreciated and I comment when appropriate. I well understand the feeling of speaking to the great void. I don't even get hate mail!
Thank you, again, you are full of nothing but good intentions!
Yours,
David
Thanks for taking part. And for tactfully avoiding mention of the other things I'm full of. ;)
It seems like forever and also seems like just yesterday. Ideas have power. Recent history has shown that media power is concentrated in the hands of a few. It is not wrong for them to give their views, but they only speak for themselves and sometime I agree, but where can I go to get my point of view out?
The truth has a funny way of surviving. Surely ideas can be suppressed and people silenced, but the power of an idea can never be fully extinguished.
For me, media girl has been a place to plant seeds. Sometime I was right. Sometimes I changed by opinion. Sometime I saw other things and responded.
The blogosphere is vast and abounds with churlishness, yet the dialogue evolves. The parents of an idea are not as important as its children
When people of good will come together to discuss things, good things can happen. The seeds of thought can be taken elsewhere and also thrive.
Of late I have been involved in some personal projects that have taken me away from media girl, yet the site is growing as more people come here to join in a dialogue that is in large part constructive.
I thank media girl for allowing me to post here and always think of it as my "home board," where I have learned so much from all of you.
May the next year be even better.
And so far, no green knight has demanded my head. Or was that my husband's head? Or was the green knight my husband?
It's been a long overnight journey, it seems. Next year should be better, if only because all we learned last year about where the good sushi can be found.
Glad to see you're back.
(I'm sorry, I didn't catch this post due to the Carnival of Feminists project, which absorbed all my time.)
Happy Blogiversary!
“On November 12 of last year, I started this site.�
You're kidding? It's that young... Wow. I consider Media Girl to be a sort of foundational brick in my feminist blog house... amazing to think it's so new.
You might be interested to know that before I joined Mediagirl.org I was toying with the idea of joining Big Brass Blog (if they'd have me, of course).Well, they wouldn't have me (I never received a reply from my enquiry email), however, in the interim I was also simultaneously reassessing their site.
A post made me think twice about the flavor/emphasis of BBB. This post was a photo of a sexual harrasser on a public subway system masturbating. It was quite a striking blog piece, because it captured a man in the act of harassing (the woman took his photo with her cellphone).
Well, I left a comment and pointers to a related article. I sat back and waiting for the comments conversational thread to “get going.� Nothing happened. (This was a post that got a lot of comments at Boing Boing.)
I wondered at the lack of interest at a progressive blog site in an issue that affects so many women. It was then that I decided Media Girl was the place for me. (Big Brass Blog did and still does produce a lot of great pieces, many overtly feminist; I was just shocked at the lack of interest/concern about this major issue that affects so many people. The post also (indirectly) asked male readers to reconsider their entitlement - that public spaces are male spaces, etc.)
“Getting to the point� (as you say): I like a mix of posts at Media Girl. I like posts about political issues, but also posts about blogging and what's going on in the blogging community.
Slight complaint (that may have more to do with me and my lack of understanding that the MG site): I'd like it to be more clear if I can post a magazine ad and comment on it at MG.
Your writing is excellent. For the Carnival thing, I was looking for something with less quotage and more original content. (Which you delivered, unbeknownst to you.)
I would not like to see a move away from a feminist agenda as it is always getting pushed to the back of the progressive crowd anyway. I would also like to see a series featuring feminist women online. I'm thinking Kirsten Anderberg, Nicky Craft (who both have extensive websites). Perhaps an interview with each of them, or something.
Apologies for not commenting more frequently. I usually just put you in my linkblog as a "thank you for writing this, I don't have time to comment right now" gesture.
This is probably more feedback than you wanted. At any rate, Happy Blogiversary, MediaGirl! And many more to come.