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I don't exactly know what I'd give the person, but the 1,000th visit to my site is fast approaching. With 996 on the "Attendance" meter at the bottom of the page, it might even occur before I finish this post.
Frankly, I've been a bit amazed at all the traffic my blog has generated. I've never had a huge number of readers in a day; the highest total of visits (some of which might have been "repeaters") was 50. On Monday this week I nailed down 48.
But -- despite my understanding that the Internet is truly everywhere -- I've been astonished at the variety of locations from which readers have found me.
Aside from literally hundreds of communities in the United States and Canada, I've had extensive foreign readership. I have regulars (so my SiteMeter counter and some correspondence tell me) from: Ankara, Turkey; Tokyo; Auckland, New Zealand (hello, Les Pratt!); Haslev, Denmark; Kiel and Bergish Gladbach, Germany; and Villers-le-Bouillet, Belgium.
I've had periodic or one-time readers from a slew of other foreign locations, including: Santiago, Chile; Sao Paolo, Brazil; New Delhi, India; Banjarmasin, Indonesia; Beijing; Melbourne, Australia; Pretoria, South Africa; Glasgow, Scotland; London (among other U.K. locations that I unfortunately didn't log); Bratislava, Slovakia; Dammam, Saudi Arabia; Seoul, South Korea; Poznan, Poland; valetta, Malta; and Madrid, Spain.
Some of them obviously stumbled by looking for something else (my Korean visitor seemed interested in Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, not necessarily racing), but the power of the Web is still amazing.
If I missed your location, stop by again and post in the roll call of comments after this thread.
To each reader I say, "Thanks for your time!" I greatly enjoy writing about horses and racing, and I'm quite pleased to know that others find my thoughts and comments worth reading.
With widespread interest in horse racing that is evidenced, in some small way, by the readership of this blog, the sport still has the prospects of a bright future.
And I'll post some (non-personal) data about visit No. 1,000. (I almost did the same for No. 666.) ... If you think it's you, e-mail me at goldengalestables@gmail.com and we'll work out the appropriate honoraria.
OK, it won't take much super-sleuthing to figure out who number 1,000 was. Turns out it was my 16-year-old daughter from her laptop across the room from me here, after she found out there was a contest involved.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since members of management and their families are ineligible to play, the honors officially go to No. 1,001.
That person arrived one minute and 11 seconds after my dear daughter, at 10:41:22 p.m., EST. Our winner was a reader from Richmond, Va.
Now, don't every person in Richmond e-mail me at once ...
Honorable mentions, by the way, to No. 999 (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and 1,002 (Indianapolis, Ind.).
ReplyDeleteAnd don't worry, folks. Sitemeter doesn't tell me enough about any of you to steal your identity or get you fired from work. Only the general location where you logged-in from -- and with some degree of error; my daughter was logged as Benson, N.C., from which our Embarq home DSL must originate -- what time you came in, how long you stayed, what blog posts you read, etc.
I've had almost as much fun with reading that data as I've had with writing about racing.