Yesterday was a very special day for me. My workers’ compensation blog, “From Bob’s Cluttered Desk”, which is just over 2 years old, served up its one millionth article view just before 4:30 in the afternoon. That means that either one million people have each read an article, or one lonely, demented, very sad person has read my articles one million times. I suppose it is possible that the reality is a combination somewhere in between.
They grow up so fast.
I wish to thank all our regular readers for their continued support and encouragement. Honestly, in the grander scope of industrial blogging this is probably not that big of an accomplishment, but it is still significant for me. Psychologically it is a validation; an affirmation that I might be doing more than just talking to myself via the written word.
This was not anything I was expecting until just recently. We realized in early August that the blog was on track to hit that mark very soon. Whenever I publish an article, or “post” in blog parlance, it generally receives between 500 and 1,500 “reads” within the first 24 hours of its life. I’ve always been happy with that, but do not consider it an exceptional number by any stretch of the imagination. However, these articles have, for reasons yet to be understood, a persistent half life, and continue to be found and read long after their initial debut. Some of them are now well over 10,000 views and still getting daily traffic. Cumulatively the views on the entire collection of 355 articles passed the one million mark yesterday.
Talk about the dumbing down of America. I did not realize how much damage I was doing. I should be stopped before I hurt somebody.
The most read article of mine to date is the intellectual analysis, “It’s a Bad Day at Work When a Meth Lab Explodes in Your Pants“. That one currently weighs in with 15,063 views. Running a very close second is “Let Me Be Blunt: Sandy Got Screwed in North Dakota“, with 14,915. While the list of my “Top 20” articles does contain some serious topics, such as “Breaking the Cycle of Entitlement: How Do We Get Better?“, and a tribute to 9/11, the list is heavy with articles about strippers, porn, drugs, enemas as well as other sundry and nefarious topics.
Son of a gun; I really am the Jerry Springer of workers’ comp. And you people need help. Serious help.
Collectively, the entire CompNewsNetwork area of our site, which encompasses news, our Blogwire and “From Bob’s Cluttered Desk”, has now served over 15,000,000 article views since the inception of the current version in 2008. It currently holds 13,113 articles, with the most read story having 297,660 views. That article was one pertaining to fraud, called “Seven People And 11 Corporations Charged In Million-Dollar Workers' Compensation Fraud”.
Thank you again to all for your kind words, support and continued readership. It means a great deal to me.
But seriously, get help. There is something wrong with you.