Have any of you wondered what it would take for your blog to be one of the most popular out of thousands who write here? When I got up today and peeked at this list, I felt like I had fallen down a rabbit hole.
Top Posts from around WordPress.com
- Halo Reach Weekly Challenge & Commentary – w/c 29th August
- Your Hate is not the Measure of Shelly’s Character, It’s the Measure of Your Own
- New Sony Reader T1 Leaked
- Arsenal seniors were a disgrace | Wenger is a disgrace | The Board and Kroenke are a disgrace
- Cuban man with 12 fingers and 12 toes
- Scientists and activists behaving badly
- [UPDATED] Sooyoung injured in Car Accident
- Nintendo Wii: The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword Gold Wii Remote Bundle Detailed Plus Free CD!
I looked at these titles and aside from certain words like scientists/activists and the 12 finger/toe guy, I had no clue what they were writing about. I get the same feeling when I look at a paper advertising big concerts. I don’t recognize the names of any of the bands. One click each later, here are the subjects of these “Top Posts” in order:
Gaming, Reality TV (Big Brother), E-Readers, Soccer, Physical Abnormality, Right-Wing Politics, Korean Girl Pop Singers, and Gaming
Aside from a miniscule portion of politics and reality TV, I have never considered writing about these subjects, and most of them I have never held interest in. If this is what’s on people’s minds at the top, I shall be happy in permanent residence on the bottom.
Invisible Mikey 
Hahaha, it’s funny isn’t it. I was just saying today I spend hours writing up posts on science, politics, religion, you name it. Then one day I throw up a short post on some Cuban dude with 24 digits and I get 30 000 hits… Says a lot doesn’t it? haha.
Sure does, Pete, and I’m glad you are in on the joke. My “most-read” post of all time is about the scientific classification system devised for different kinds of poop. It still gets 50 or so hits a week and I wrote it a year ago.
>>>New Sony Reader T1 Leaked
That’s my post. And it got on that list because Daring Fireball linked to me and sent traffic through the roof.
The others on that list, I have no idea about.
Me either. Congratulations anyway.
We had a similar recognition experience when we moved to England. We’d read the newspaper or watch the news, and though we knew the words were English, and we knew the meanings of the words, we couldn’t grasp the entire meaning of the report because we didn’t know the cultural background.
I expect I too will be a permanent non-resident of the WordPress popularity list. I can’t write about a popular culture I’m not part of.
I know what you mean. I had to watch three full episodes of EastEnders before I could decipher their accent. Once I understood the words, it took about 20 more episodes before I began comprehending the slang. You write well, though. That’s always on my Top 10 list.
It’s not necessarily that that’s the top of people’s mind, more that they’re enjoyed by large portions of the internet reading/using/dwelling people. I write the Reach Daily Challenges blog (the first one on the list). Every day the developers behind the video game Halo: Reach have 4 challenges within the game (kill X enemies, complete X games, use this weapon X times, etc). I write the blog as a guide to completing these challenges quickly and easily.
There is also a weekly challenge starting every Monday, which is why Monday is always my highest day for hit count. Yesterday the new weekly challenge was to do a mission within 9 minutes. This would be difficult except for a known exploit on one mission that means it can be done in 5-6 minutes very easily.
The main reason I ended up so high up the list is that people were reading my blog for information on how to do the challenge, getting advice on how to best use the exploit, and discussing other ways it could be done without using an in-game glitch, plus checking that the reward for the challenge was correctly (2-3 times larger than normal).
Hundreds of thousands of people play this one game every day, so it’s no surprise that tens of thousands would either want help or to discuss it when it’s something different. My blog comes with an in-built audience, and it’s been around since October so had time to develop. Usually I average 4,000 hits a day, and get on the top 100 once or twice a week.
I can certainly see why the Arsenal post would be there – the result again Manchester United was huge news, so someone writing something with depth and detail would be consumed by a vast audience. Plus as with a commenter above, if you’re featured elsewhere that will help drive traffic.
Thanks for your in-depth explanation, Matthew. I understood at least two of every ten sentences you wrote. I also understood before writing the post that popularity is based upon subjects that the greatest number of people are interested in at one time. After all, several of the Top 10 Web sites on any given day are porn URLs. My point was that I’m not interested in these things. But, by all means, enjoy them yourself!
On the basis of your list above and the explanation by Matthew Vose, one of the people on that list (well done, young man), it looks like I’ll be residing at the bottom with you, Mikey. We’ll make it our little secret.
I loved the way two of the three guys who were on the list wrote to explain to me why, as if I WANTED to be popular. Pete, however, the first person to comment, understood the point of the post, as did you.
You made me laugh (the last line). I don’t understand what anyone is interested in either. I think your titles are pretty interesting – I especially liked “Headful of Strange” I thought that was genius at enticing people, well me at least. Take care.
Thanks, UBGrrl. I’m putting my experience at restoring the soundtracks of bad movies to use. Very often the best thing about them was their catchy titles.
Great post, and I laughed out loud at your response to Matthew’s comment. I’m definitely out of the loop here. Of course, I feel that way now standing in the checkout line looking at the headlines on the magazines and tabloids. Who are those people?!
I had some reality check conversations with myself awhile back about my blog. I decided that I really was content with my obscure little corner of blogworld. It was very freeing to release the anxiety about all the things I didn’t know and would need to know to even try to get in the big leagues. What a relief!
Like Emily Dickenson’s poem–I’m a nobody. That’s me. Hat’s off to the “somebodies.” It was very interesting to read the comments from some of them!
Emily Dickenson, one of America’s greatest poets, whose work is taught in every public school’s English curriculum, had fewer than a dozen poems published during her lifetime, and many of those were re-written by editors with no understanding of her genius. I hear Van Gogh also had a lot of trouble selling anything. As you and my regular peeps know, I’m not doing this for fame, money, or traffic. I’m trying to become a better writer by writing. It’s practice.
I am out of the loop too and will happily stay at the bottom of the popularity list.
You are doing better than I am to understand anything Matthew talked about. I have heard my sons utter some of the same words. So I do recognize a few. However, I choose to spend my time on other areas of interest…which I am sure have no appeal to the game playing masses. Fine with me.
Like me, you are merely in an alternate universe, Debbie. There’s more than one loop. They are in the loop. I am on the loop. My neighbors call themselves “The Loopers”. One of them even has a Wii. Thanks for dropping by.
I’m with you on this one! 😆
Add me to it too. And hasn’t Mikey suddenly made us feel good about it?
That’s part of my intent. :::bowing:::
There’s a good side to being out of touch. Thanks, Robyn.
Hmm, I wonder if I could get all these topics into one super-duper post that would bring my little blog the worldwide fame it deserves? Nah, I’ve got enough to worry about as it is. No need to add the horrors of reality TV and internet gaming into it. Though I do have an E-Reader….:-)
I love my little community of bloggers who offer their love and support. I wouldn’t trade that for a million hits.
That’s a funny idea! I would add a celebrity sex scandal for good measure.
Yep, I’m happy to stay at the bottom of the list too. Though I did have to take a peek at the post about the guy with the 24 digits because I’ve got a compulsion (obsession? Sometimes I don’t know the difference!) to count people’s fingers and toes! I could barely believe that I was not seeing the normal five when I looked at the guy’s picture… it was great and almost made this silly compulsion worthwhile. (I’m grinning.)
The guy who posted that 24 finger dude post had a good sense of humor about it too.