250,000 blog visitors and counting...

Today begins a new year...it also marks the crossing of a threshold, for me. This morning, my blog visitor count crossed the quarter of a million mark and, at 6.30 pm Malaysian time, on 1/1/10, New Year's Day, I have had 250,080 visitors to my blog, in total, since it began on September 19th 2006.

Now, to some a quarter of a million visitors may not sound like much. However, I would like you to think about it, for a bit. How many people do you think you will meet, personally, in your lifetime? No matter how gregarious you are, there is just no way it is going to reach a quarter of a million. How many people, in your lifetime, will you actually speak to? Again, no matter how gregarious you are, it is not going to reach a quarter of a million - unless you are a performer of some kind and take to the stage on a regular basis - and talk about yourself. However, on a personal basis, there is no way you are going to speak to a quarter of a million people. Thus, that quarter of a million people that I have communicated with, is a very significant number: it is many times more than the number of people I could possibly have communicated, personally, to, in a lifetime of random chatter.

So, even though I have not left my computer to do so, I have managed to "chat" to many lifetimes worth of people, in the three years since my blog began. I think that is an unexpected and worthy accomplishment since, when I began my blog, I had no idea how popular it would prove, or whether anyone would find it and read it at all. I was writing, expressing my thoughts at the time. I had no idea of the size of the audience I would reach.

By another scale of reckoning a quarter of a million people is a significant number, too. Imagine, for instance, that that represented the number of book sales, I had made. It is quite something to sell a quarter of a million copies of a book. So, compared to the typical sales of books, my blog has proven to be a "best seller".

I am conscious, however, that there are much more successful blogs in this world. Yet, I am not crestfallen to know this. Those other blogs are not, like my own, niche interests. They are usually focussed on a mass market interest - such as film star gossip, some young woman's love life, or the like. I cannot, therefore, expect to compete with revelations of Tom Cruise's private life, or Brad Pitt's kids.

I am happy to know that my blog is being read by people with an interest in what interests me - and that is enough. That there should have been so many of them, over the past three years, is quietly pleasing.

Thank you, for reading. If you have enjoyed any of my posts, do let others know about my blog, so that they can enjoy it, too.

Happy New Year.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Technorati Ranking for The Boy Who Knew Too Much.

By reason of nothing more than randomness, I decided to check my Technorati ranking, yesterday. I found myself rather stunned by the result.

Those of you who are long term readers of my blog will have noted a blog post I wrote on May 27th 2007. Then, I remarked that my blog was doing unexpectedly well. I had a Technorati authority of 23 - which meant that 23 independent blogs had linked to me in the previous six months - and I stood 222,604th out of all the world's then, 71 million blogs, in Technorati ranking. These rankings are an indicator of how important other people think the blog is, as it is measured by the number of people who decide to link to it, from the rest of the blogosphere, compared to how many people are linking to all the other blogs. I was, at the time, rather pleased to have my, then, young blog, considered so highly by the rest of the blogosphere.

Yesterday, I saw a surprisingly different tale concerning my blog. Firstly, it should be noted that, according to Wikipedia, Technorati was tracking and ranking 112.8 million blogs by June 2008. Presumably they are likely to be tracking more now. Anyway, have a guess where my blog was listed, out of such a giant horde of blogs, in significance in the blogosphere, yesterday?

Well, I was stunned to note that my blog was listed as the 15,157th blog in the world out of all of its hundred million plus blogs! Not only that but astonishingly its authority was listed as 419. This means that, in the previous six months, 419 new bloggers decided to link to my blog. To my mind, that is a very large number.

To put it into terms that might be more meaningful, my blog is in the top 99.987% of all blogs, worldwide.

Now, I must point out that Technorati is measuring blog importance in terms of the number of people who think it worth linking to a blog. It is not measuring purely the traffic to the blog. My blog remains a niche interest, in regards to its subject matter, but what is clear, is that those who do read it, appreciate it, more than is typical - for a lot of people are linking to it.

Thanks to those who have linked to my blog. I am really amazed to learn that there are so many of you out there. It is appreciated and acts as a spur to keep on writing.

I did note something even more interesting. Technorati indicates that my blog has fallen in rank recently. Thus, an authority of 419 is NOT the peak it has reached. It has, in the recent past, been even more popular.

If you have a blog, and like anything that you read here, I would be grateful if you could link to the posts that you like, or to the blog head page. Thanks very much.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Singapore Daily, blog aggregator moves

Some of you have first discovered my site, by following links from mentions on Singapore Daily, the blog aggregator/commenter. Singapore Daily has moved, it is no longer to be found at wordpress. Its new address is: www.singaporedaily.net

I have decided to link to it since I think that Singapore Daily performs the valuable function of making access to current information on what is happening in Singapore a lot easier. Most people would not have the time to hunt around to find out what is going on, without the help of sites such as Singapore Daily.

Please note that I am not personally involved at Singapore Daily, in any way. I note, however, that their new site has no page rank. This means that they will appear very low on searches. In other words, many fewer people will find them and the articles they reference now that they have moved. All the links to their wordpress site are of no value to them now that they have moved. (That site had a page rank of 4, which is respectable: it is the same as mine.) So, might I suggest that, if you have a website, you might link to Singapore Daily - and allow them to recover their proper place in front of many eyes, on the search engines. It would make access to the Singaporean Blogosphere a whole lot easier for everyone. By linking to them, myself, I have made my own contribution to their recovery of page rank and position in the search engines. You should, too, if you believe in free and easy access to information that would otherwise be unavailable.

Then, again, of course, if you like any of my own articles, on The Boy Who Knew Too Much, a link to it would be gratefully received! Thanks.

So, I would like to wish Singapore Daily well on their move and their new site: I hope it becomes as popular as the old one and remains as active in the Blogosphere as it has been. Good luck.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and ten months, and Tiarnan, twenty-seven months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

All quiet on the Blogosphere front

Some of the commenters on my Xiaxue post, have remarked that the Singaporean Blogosphere has quietened since the NLB announced its remarkable choices for archiving. Some notable bloggers have, it seems, set their keyboards aside, in a mute protest at being thought unworthy of selection - at least, it seems that way. Either that, or their sudden silence is an inexplicable coincidence.

I am somewhat surprised at this reaction. My own thinking on the matter is that if an external body, handing out approval and recognition - which is what the NLB is doing in this case - does not approve or recognize one's work, the proper response is to plow on and continue to write. The writing itself is its own justification - and it needs no official approval to make it worthy.

I can understand that it is disheartening to see others of lesser worth - some might even say, utterly worthless, in fact - to be chosen, when one's own carefully chosen words are ignored and considered not worth noting. However, one should not be disheartened. Those who do not choose to recognize one's words say nothing about those words - their action speaks only of themselves, and their values. Through the NLB's choices, is the nature of the NLB's criteria revealed. So, by their choice, we learn of them. We do not learn of the merit or otherwise of a particular blogger. The blogger remains as good as the blogger actually is. So, I would not fall silent, simply because an authority failed to notice one's efforts. I would urge all those bloggers who have fallen silent, to resume writing and express once more, the thoughts that, before the Blogosphere, would not have been known.

The Blogosphere is here to allow you to speak your mind - so do so.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and six months, and Tiarnan, twenty-three months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)