Surprising Statistics

Recently I noticed a rather staggering number when scanning through my social media accounts. It turns out that, somehow, I have had over one million profile views on Google+. That being said, of the social media sites that I use on a regular basis I am the least familiar with Google+ so I had to do some digging to figure out how that number is calculated. This led me to a post by Mark Traphagen on the Stone Temple Consulting website which provided some useful bullet points:

• Posts are counted for any view of them in any Google+ stream. A viewer does not have to click on or otherwise engage with a post for it to count as a view. So even if the viewer scrolls by the post in her stream, a view is counted. Basically, the post just has to have been seen on someone’s screen. Interesting tidbits: 
• All shares of a post that are seen by others count as views, both for the sharer and for the original poster.
• Posts that become recommended content in others’ streams because someone +1’ed them can count as views for the original poster.
• Embedded Google + posts also can increment this view count. That’s because a post embedded in a site page using the post’s embed code displays in an iframe, which means it is actually being viewed on the plus.google.com server.
• Photos/images (UPDATED!) must be “opened” only need to go by in someone’s stream (or be seen on Blogger, Picasa, or Chromecast) to count for a view.
• Profiles & Pages only count as a view when someone opens them in their own tab or window.

Even with this “explanation” it is still a surprising figure to me as I am one that uses social media but doesn’t really leverage it to the best of my ability. When you factor in that I only have just over 160 Google+ followers, 3,536 LinkedIn followers, 1,000 Twitter followers, and exactly zero people following my blog through Blogger, it still doesn’t add up. I could dig a little more and try to find a proper accounting of this figure but, in the end, this isn’t really important.

The numbers that I am focused on are the daily goals that I have set for myself by writing a blog a day, every day, with a minimum word count of 400. That is what I focus on with everything else being a pleasant surprise. It is with this in mind that I find the nearly 90,000 blog views much more gratifying than the magical one million figure under my Google+ profile picture. The growth of the blog has been steady over the years and knowing that I have been able to keep the promise I made to myself (and later my readers) is what keeps me writing every single day.

Funding Campaigns

Well, the time has come. While I have tried to avoid this for as long as possible, the time that it takes to maintain this blog and the resources that it requires (and the simple fact that I am running out of free ideas) that I start a fundraising campaign. I have also been asked about donating on a few occasions so this also provides the means for me to now accept those generous offers. Actually, because of the projects that I am working on, I am actually starting two fundraising campaigns through Patreon and Kickstarter respectively.

The Patreon campaign is ongoing and is designed to help with the recurring costs of maintaining this blog and raising the funds to take the blog to the next level. To this point, I have funded all research, travel, equipment, review products, and other expenses to maintain the daily stream of content. Obviously, this has come on a pretty tight budget and has hindered the growth of the blog which currently receives over 2,000 views per month. Patreon allows readers to donate monthly to the blog to support these efforts. Additional details about the campaign as well as incentives and ways the funds will be used can be found at https://www.patreon.com/SeanMT4D.

Understandably, not everyone is able to contribute on a monthly basis and many readers have specifically asked me about one topic in particular… genealogy. With those suggestions in mind I have started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $20,000 to really dig deep into my family tree. I admit that it is a lofty goal but it is also one that would allow me to expedite the process. The project is titled “Pruning The Family Tree: Questioning Facts and Fiction” and will result in a book most likely with the same title. Overall, the purpose of this project is not only to find those elusive answers but also to give shape and character to the lives of my ancestors and tell their stories, as eventful or uneventful as they may be, to the world. Additional details about this campaign, how the funds will be used (there is some overlap with the Patreon campaign), as well as the incentives for these onetime donations can be found at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1751333165/pruning-the-family-tree-questioning-facts-and-fict.

If you have the means to contribute I would greatly appreciate your support with one or both of these campaigns. If your finances do not allow for such an expense I completely understand. I never have and never will maintain this blog solely for profit and to change that now would be disingenuous. I appreciate all the support that I received in maintaining this blog and I will continue to provide you with the free content that you have come to expect. Thank you all for your support.