Josh's Weblog: 2004 Blog Moments

2004 Blog Moments

This week there's been some folks looking back at 2004 and thinking about the biggest moments for blogs. For example, Ed Driscoll posted a top ten list of blogging moments at Tech Central Station. Of his list, I certainly agree that the buzz about the Swift Vets ads, Ra^thergate, Christmas in Cambodia and Kerry's Winter Soldier activities were big blog moments.

Another, to me, would be the emergence of RSS as a mature medium. For example, this year I focused less on mailing lists and more on RSS feeds for watching what's going on out there. After playing with it for a little while, I was inspired to start my own blog, and now I'm nearly at 300 posts since August. I have not drawn nearly as many comments as others, but this blog is primarily for the consumption of my friends and family. I'm a pretty busy guy so perhaps my content is not as consistent as other blogs.

Lori Byrd and DJ Drummond have posted more personal blog moments of 2004. For me, the biggest blog moment was my “AP Quoting Out of Context” article. That drew comments and a trackback, which I was not expecting. However, the postings that draw the most visitors are “Is Your SUV Over 6000 Pounds GVW?” and “Kerry the Nuanced Sitzpinkler.” My discussions of ASLET and HR 218 also drew a bit of interest.

I also felt good about getting email from Captain Ed of Captain's Quarters Blog and comments from Jacqueline Passey as well. I suspect I'd get a lot more feedback if I posted comments on other people's blogs instead of relying on their trackback mechanisms. For the most part, I've been gunshy about spam. Having had pun.org around for so long I draw spam from a lot of sources, and I don't volunteer for it. Moveable Type comment spam is probably the low point of 2004 blogging, in my book.

However, my web pages describing the Portland, Oregon Firearms Training and NRA Course Descriptions are far more popular than any particular blog entry. I draw 10–20 visits a day, each, for those two pages. Those pages exist, in some form, from my ancient blogging days using reporter.cgi, a home-grown set of perl scripts that I made back in 1997. Makes me feel proud that I tried to blog all that long ago, before RSS and XML. Of course, I never kept at it, so I don't feel that proud.

Some have encouraged me to post a little less politics and a little more of interest to folks who know me—some have noticed the increase in postings about my school work. I will probably not post much about my work at IBM. That's obviously touchy because I'm a manager there.

With that I'm going back to my reading…

Josh Poulson

Posted Tuesday, Dec 28 2004 05:58 PM