Back in April, I hit
200,000 views on my blog. It took me a year or so to get my first 100,000 (this was after I started to track it), and about 6 months after that to get another 100,000. This next 100,000 took me about 7 months, so I guess I'm staying on track although I would like to increase my viewers.
Last time, I used one of the monuments at Gettysburg. This time, I will use a lighthouse since it illuminates the dark and warns of danger. I think one of the dangers is that I've been too focused on one thing lately. I'm trying to break out of that a bit but I like my ships. I'm gonna try to get back to what I was doing before and I think my Ohio pictures helped in that end. Some of the pictures I took in Port Huron will also help but there are still a ton of ship pictures.
As I did last time, I will do it again. I would like to thank the people that have come to this blog. I'm glad that I have a regular group of people that read and sometimes comment on this blog. I wish more people would comment because sometimes it helps me focus. In fact, I would welcome some constructive criticism.
This also presents a good time to see what the future holds. Well, more ships but I think I'm going to bring some other projects to the forefront. I think the immediate future might bring a trip on Grand Boulevard in Detroit, although I think I may break one of my standing practices on this blog....showing the bad stuff in Detroit but we take what we can get.
So again, thanks for coming here and please continue to come here.
First, congratulations on the milestone.
ReplyDeleteWe've talked about this, but I'll respond. Consider it either a suggestion, constructive criticism or just a comment... I'll post here in hopes that it'll encourage others to respond. If the content of my response bothers you, feel free to delete it.
Also, keep in mind what I said the other day when we were in Ohio. We have different tastes in subject matter. I prefer the natural, you seem to prefer the man made. That's okay.
Aside from being a friend, what kept me coming to your blog was the variety of stuff you covered. A lot of it I wasn't terribly interested in, but I learned a lot which made it more interesting than it would have been otherwise.
But I've seen more than enough ship pictures. The same ships from the same locations brings nothing new to the blog. I've gone from checking your blog every day to maybe once a week. Instead of looking at each picture, I just browse through them quickly only occasionally stopping to really look at a picture. If we weren't friends I probably wouldn't visit it anymore because, quite honestly, I'm bored with it.
You got your big boost shooting UofM games, but I don't see that anymore. (And I'm not a sports photography fan.) I don't know how many of those folks still visit the site.
Your '12 months' series was nice, especially Tahquamenon Falls. It took a lot of time and effort and I think that stood out. To me it seems that doing the 12 months of Belle Isle is being done because its easy. You're there so you can get pictures without having to put a lot of extra effort into it. And you don't have the same commitment to it. I don't remember when your last Belle Isle update was.
I think you need to figure out what you want to do with your blog.
If you want to have a maritime themed blog that's okay. There is a large, friendly boatnerd community and if that is who you are targeting as your audience, that's fine.
If you want to get back to what your original purpose was, I think you'll have a broader appeal.
My feeling is that if you focus primarily on ships, you're going to lose those people who came for other reasons while if you focus on other things, fewer boat people will become uninterested.
I actually want to thank you for your honesty on this. We've talked about this for a while and I'll have to say that I pretty much agree with you. I guess it hit home when I looked at my history for about the past 3 to 4 months and I saw that the bulk of the posts were ships. Heck, when I look at Picasa and I see a ton of ships, I know that something is amiss.
ReplyDeleteI would love to do a maritime blog and I think if I went down that route, it would be a separate blog. The original purpose of this blog was to highlight aspects of MIchigan. Some of those things may be repeated but that would be more to highlight seasons or whatever. And somewhere or sometime, I lost that focus. That is part of the reason I feel like I'm in a rut.
The really sad part is I have a ton of ideas. Like I've said before, I've got Grand Blvd, Grand River and Gratiot to do. I really liked the other road series I did. Heck, I think there is even Outer Drive.
So I don't know.
That's why I was pretty excited about what you proposed yesterday. I'd really like to do that too. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to work the weekend you're doing it.
ReplyDeleteNorth Territorial is good too. I took it from 23 west to the end. I've done M-50. Take 24 north into the thumb. I've done all of those and they were really enjoyable.
Even 24 from Monroe to west of Fort Wayne was interesting. I even think they've completed, or have nearly completed, the portion that was under construction when we went to Indiana a couple of years ago.