I’m One Month Old! (What’s That In “Blog Years”?)
June 12th, 2008 . by economistmomWell, it’s been a month since I launched this blog, and I have to say it’s been a lot of fun, and thanks to all of you visitors out there who have been so supportive and have helped to bring the “contagion” of the blogosphere to my little space. I love that I have increased the population of the blogosphere…and not just by adding my mom, really! ;)
Tomorrow I’m the “guest blogger” on the AGA Weblog–that’s the blog of the Association of Government Accountants. Even if it doesn’t exactly sound like your kind of place, I’ll ask you to please visit it tomorrow anyway. It’ll also be good to draw the government accountability types to this website, to show them how I’m trying to get the message to more ”ordinary people.” (Maybe they will share it with their moms.)
I get much more excited about the visitors that I recruit from the rest of my varied life, like Lisa, the pharmacist mom from West Virginia, whom I met at the yoga workshop this past weekend, who only knew me as a fellow yogi, who in random small talk with me about our drives to Pittsburgh on Sunday morning commented on the condition of the interstate highways, to which I asked “did you hear the NPR story this morning on dams?”, to which she responded by going on about how neglectful our country’s been at keeping up our infrastructure, and then ended with a rather breathless “…and what about the federal debt–all that money we’re borrowing!“ You can imagine how my face lit up, and how at that moment I realized that Lisa had amazing insights as the pharmacist mom and citizen mom she is, and that I wanted to keep up my connection with her. I told her about what I did as my “real job” and about EconomistMom.com, and that evening she told her WVU daughter, who coincidentally has been assigned to read Freakonomics for one of her honors courses. The fact that Lisa and her daughter have promised to visit is what has made this blogging experience so wonderful to me–even just one month into it.
Yesterday I put in another application to be one of the blogs featured on BlogHer (the “community for women who blog”), because I had to rack up at least one month of blogging history, with a decent frequency of posts, before they’d consider me. (I obviously haven’t had any trouble with the frequency thing.) …UPDATE (4 pm): Hey, BlogHer just added me to their roll! 
A few weeks ago I had found this directory/ranking of economics blogs by Aaron Schiff, based on “Technorati” ratings, which I have to admit I do not understand and am having trouble finding explanation–even on Technorati’s site. But in Technorati rating terms (whatever those are) I’m like 140-something out of the 250+ economics blogs listed, and I think those ratings might be based on traffic over a more-than-one-month (maybe two-month?) period, so given that I’ve only been out there for half the time, well, that seems pretty decent. Of course, I’m not even listed on Brian Gongol’s directory/ranking of economics and business websites, so I just sent him an email today to ask him to please consider me.
It’ll be interesting to see who “accepts” me first–the women’s blogging community, or the economists’ blogging community. (Oh, and by the way, when I sent an email last month to workingmother.com’s “MomBlog” managers, I didn’t even get a reply–so I’m not doing very well with the moms’ blogging community, so far. But I’m persistent and not easily discouraged…)
One month old in the blogosphere, and I feel like I might be the equivalent of a one year old, if I translate to the human lifespan equivalent. So it strikes me that my “blog age” in “blog years” might go something like the translation one does to figure out “dog years”–I think that’s something like for the first two chronological years, one month is like one year, and then after that, one year is like seven years?… So by the time you get to ten chronological years, that’s a fairly long life (translates to 80 years if you do that math)–whether you’re a dog or a blog. Sort of seems about right, doesn’t it?
(Actually, it takes my blogging to get me to do important research like this. I found this “dog years calculator”–yes, really!–on the web that says that the first two years are equivalent to 10.5 dog years, and then the rest are equivalent to 4 dog years each… so under that math, a 10 year old dog, or blog, is really only slightly more than middle-aged, or 53. I think I disagree with that at least for dogs who weigh more than 10 pounds, or blogs who have authors that have more than blogs as their livelihood.)
So thanks for visiting and reading, everyone. I’d really love to hear from you more, via your public comments here. In particular, I’d really love to know who’s out there?–what kind of diversity I’m drawing. Because it’s not so much whether I’m mentioned in the Wall Street Journal or how high my economist-blog rankings are that matter to me (which seems based mostly on how many other economists are visiting here), but how many people are visiting and reading who would not otherwise think about economic policy or fiscal responsibility as relevant to their daily lives. So please “talk to me” here!
I think Technorati measures the number of unique nbound links over the last six months.
I’ve included your posts on my daily links a few times, and pgl at Angry Bear found you from that (and raved), so, there’s been progress.
Gererally, growth is slower than you hope, but as long as traffic is going up, that’s the main thing. You’ll have surges when things are picked up elsewhere, and each time a few more will stick…
And you are doing the right thing in being fairly aggressive in letting people know about you. That, and linking to other people also help a lot with growth.
Mark
As a fellow new blogger (since March), I know what it’s like to not know who’s reading.
I’m subscribed through Google Reader, so I see it whenever you post, and I read them all. I especially like the mom insights, like the “banana peel” distraction analogy.
It seems like guest blogging and getting invited to guest post is a way to spread out and reach new potential readers.
Only one month and going strong. I’ve been happy to read so keep it coming.
Technorati rankings are based on number of inbound links from other blogs over the past 180 days. Each blog is only counted once (e.g. 10 links from one blog only counts as one), and blogs with the most inbound links are ranked highest.
OK I have put a link to your site and written about it at gametheorist.blogspot.com. So consider me out there. Should help the technorati rankings.
I’m a reader from the world of Moms who worry about the future of the economy. Hope you keep this up for many more ‘blog years’. Good luck to you.
They say the first month is the easiest.
Congrats. You’re a very welcome addition to the blogosphere!
I’m not an economist, but being the daughter of another economist mom, I read and think about economics a lot. I probably found you through Economist’s View, which is on my regular reading list.
I’ll recommend you to my Mom, but my track record on getting her to read what I suggest isn’t good. I sent her the link for Economist’s View at least twice without effect. Some time later she sent me an e-mail recommending it to me, saying she had found it on an economist’s list serve she subscribes to.
I’m not a mom myself, so I don’t read any ‘mommy blogs’. Other than economics and finance, I read a lot on international subjects and other cultures. Also sustainability and ecology.
Keep up the good work and don’t be discouraged if you don’t get comments. What I do is probably pretty typical: Even after I find a blog and like it enough to bookmark it I won’t usually visit regularly at first. There are too many interesting things to read and the lifespan of blogs is too short to make that investment right away. But if you’re still here a year from now — and still writing posts as interesting as these are– I can almost guarantee you’ll find me on your regular visitors list by then!
I can’t thank you enough for your blog. I’m not sure quite how I came across it (some weird confluence of those internet tubes, I guess), but apparently I was googling something, came across Economist Mom, and now you are one of my favorites.
Fiscal responsibility and accountability is a huge interest of mine. I am not an economist or policy wonk (computer science, database development and project management are my bag), and am often frustrated when I cannot get a good understanding of an issue. Your blog really helps. I especially liked the “donut hole” post. Although it takes a little bit of effort for the novice, you help to make it perfectly clear. Who knows, maybe I’ll amaze someone at a party some day with my grasp of the issue ! (of course, I’ll have to read it a few more times to be sure).
I appreciate your efforts here. For those of us who want to really understand and not just rely on 15-second sound bites, your blog is a gem among gems.
Shirley: You just made my day!
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.–Albert Einstein (1879-1955), U.S. scientist
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