17 August 2005 - Started life on Blogger.
12 October 2005 - Moved to self-hosted Blogger
13 November 2005 - Moved to hosted WordPress.com.
30 September 2006 - Purchased domain name and moved to self-hosted WordPress.org
01 July 2007 - Adsense appears.
29 August 2007 - One of many crises of confidence where I nearly shut down the blog and deleted all content.
19 January 2008 - Adsense disappears.
15 February 2008 - Moved from WordPress to Habari.
This humble blog is four years old today so tonight I will be taking Blog in isolation and some of its closest friends to LazerQuest (Mega Death Match Party Edition with Pizza and gallons of Coca Cola to ensure the kids are well and truly revved up).
Everyone loves meaningful statistics so here is a pretty chart of posts by month (for all you management types):
Curiously, since I returned from my holiday, I seem to have rediscovered a little of my zest for blogging. Also, I have a feeling that things are gradually turning full circle. My initial decision to dip my toe in the water was prompted by reading and enjoying the writing of other people and I sense that element is slowly returning. More recently, reading blogs had turned into mindlessly hitting 'J' in Google Reader as fast as humanly possible simply in order to say 'Done'.
Over the weekend, I spent time enjoying some brilliant posts from the dusty archives of one of my favourite UK bloggers - Diamond Geezer (pseudonym alert). This, in turn, (via his blogroll) led to the discovery of a handful of other interesting and downright funny UK blogs. I have bemoaned my failure to find decent UK blogs more than once - maybe I just didn't look hard enough or in the right places.
Before my holiday, I was experimenting once again with Tumblr and Posterous and while these services may have a place for a rapid fire linkblogs, scrapbooks and ready made, easy blogs (for people who don't know or care what a blog is), I suspect that posts I made there were simply posts I could have equally made over here. But I was too lazy.
Blogging takes time. Blogging is difficult. Blogging is time-consuming.
Firstly, you have to think of a subject. Then you have to waste time thinking up all the words. Then you have to login. to your blog Then you have to actually type all the words in. Then you have to endlessly preview and endeavour to fix all your typos and grammar. Then you have to add an image to spice things up and break the article into logical sections for your reader (just like the 'Blogging 101 Guide' says). Then you have to add tags. Then you have to monitor and reply to all comments. Then you have to publicise it.
Yes - blogging is hard. So much easier and a lot quicker to hit 'Like' what someone else has produced.
Ironically, the well publicised death of FriendFeed sparked my interest and I was briefly active again over there, providing counselling services to the bereaved.
So, what does all of this mean for the next four years of this blog ? God knows.