Fourth anniversary of my blog: an assessment.

Yesterday, marked the fourth year of my blog, exactly. So, as is my custom, it is time to review how the year went.

Firstly, I was much busier, in my life, than in previous years, with less time to write. Thus, I posted less frequently than in any of the previous three years. Then again, only a few weeks ago, I almost gave up writing altogether because of "hate mail" I had been receiving for writing some things, which some people just didn't want to hear. However, after much deliberation I decided to write on: after all, when others urge us to silence, is that not precisely when we should speak out loudest? No man should be silenced for his views, for it is the unpopular view that is the most valuable, since it may show us, all, that the prevailing thinking is wrong - as it is, often, of course and has been throughout history. That is why "geniuses" are remembered - because they managed to show the world that, whatever at the time had been commonly thought, was, in fact, mistaken. A genius is one who can show us not so much how to think, but what we have been thinking wrongly.

Here is the good news: I still enjoy writing this blog. Indeed, it is my favourite personal hobby just to sit down and express my thoughts, freely and without needing to ask another human being whether I can publish them. That is the great pleasure of blogging: the freedom to publish whatever one pleases, whenever one pleases, without needing permission of anyone. Perhaps at no time in history, before, has this been the lot of all. Before now, only those with printing presses could publish what they pleased, when they pleased - and even then, their societies might have censured them, arrested them, or killed them, for it. Now, however, I, and all others with access to the Internet, can publish whatever we wish. It is a freedom that is too little appreciated and, perhaps, not used as wisely as it could be. There is a lot being published in this world, that adds no value to it - but, at least, there is the compensation that much of value is also being allowed to be expressed - so, on balance, the freedom to do so, is of benefit to the world and everyone in it.

Posting less frequently has led, it seems, to a small decline in annual readership figures. My total number of readers since the blog began on September 19, 2006 was 317,867 visits (as of midnight last night). To my mind, that is a good tally, since it is almost a third of a million people to whom I have communicated something that they thought worth reading. So, it is a special, very modern kind of achievement. However, of those readers, 95,153 visited in the fourth year. That is a decline of 21,845 readers year on year. In other words, a drop of 18.67% in readership from the previous year. Yet, it is not as bad as it seems, since over 10,000 of the readers in the third year visited in ONE DAY, when the German newspaper De Bild (the paper with the highest readership in Germany) linked to my blog, owing to a news article on Ainan. Thus the real decline, for any reasonable way of looking at it, is half the apparent decline. Another way of looking at it would be to relate it to the frequency of blog posting. Now, I haven't the time, at this moment to count the posts, but I estimate that the frequency in the fourth year probably went down by about 25%. Thus, the drop in readership is less than the drop in posting frequency. This actually indicates that readership per post in fact INCREASED.

The total number of page views since the blog started was, as of midnight last night, 656,607. This represents approximately seven times that, in blog posts, since a single page of the archives is one week of posts. (In some weeks however, there might be as many as 15 posts...and in others there might be fewer than seven.) This means that in the region of 4,596,249 posts have been read, on my blog, since I started it. Given that a typical post might be a thousand words long, with up to 13,000 words or more of comments, thereafter, it can be seen that readers have read BILLIONS of my words, since I began writing the blog.

The number of new page views for this year was 166,685. This is a decline year on year, but is very similar to the tally attained in the second year, which was 160,169. The decline from last year's total of 224,066 page views, was 57,381 page views. This is a decline of 25.6% in page views, from the baseline of last year. Oddly enough, that is in line with my own decline in output, which is, perhaps, indicative of what is happening: they have been reading less, because I have been writing less. The total number of posts read in the past year was about 7 times 166,685 or 1,166,795 posts. This suggests at least a billion posted words were consumed and several billion words of comments (over half of which will have been written by me, since I tend to reply to almost every post, at least once).

So, it has been another billion plus word, reading year, on my blog. I am pleased with that. As I have noted before, the level of communication achieved by this blog is on a par with the level of communication achieved from having a best seller. The 1.166 billion words of posts read by my readers equates to 15,556 copies of a 75,000 word novel. Should comments be included in that reading tally, then we can, perhaps, estimate another 30,000 to 45,000 copies of the "novel" in question. Thus, the scale of communication is significant, in terms of volume of information. Furthermore, the actual number of people reached is much more than a well selling novel typically reaches.

As always, I have had readers from all over the world - even from places where one doesn't really expect to find Internet connections - for instance, towns in Africa and small islands in the middle of vast oceans. I have had readers from many such places. Peculiarly, these people, from places rare and unknown, have sometimes searched for me, or my son, by name. Thus, one can only conclude that the reputation we have begun to acquire is spreading very far and wide, indeed (by word of mouth and word of Internet, I would say).

In the coming year, I hope to write more frequently than I have been doing so in the past year. I have put in place a more conducive environment for writing and should have time, now, to devote more energy to it. So, I expect to see a resurgence of my readership figures in the year ahead.

Another factor, though is coming into play. I am publishing my blog at the Kindle store on Amazon.com. I cannot say, at this time, what effect this will have on my "readership figures" because those readers will not be counted by visits directly to my blog. Thus, though they won't appear in my readership tally, a new audience will be growing. I will have to provide estimates for them, too, in my fifth year assessment.

Thank you all for reading The Boy Who Knew Too Much: A Child Prodigy, over the years. It continues to be a pleasure to write and to read your comments. The only blemish has been a few hostile anonymous commenters - but now, that there are no anonymous comments, civility has returned to the blog and I am grateful for that.

Happy reading, all, in the year ahead. I shall, I hope, continue to be happy writing it. Best wishes, all, on the year to come.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.htmlI also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to:http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Breaking the 200,000 readers barrier.

In life, every little milestone is worth a minor celebration, of a kind: after all, that is how we measure progress in all that we do. So, today's little celebration concerns the number of readers to this blog: at 3.54 pm on 4th July 2009, there were 200,126 readers, in total, of my blog, since the day it began.

Now, just over 200,000 readers in less than three years may not seem like much, to many people. However, I realized long ago, that a blog about anything "gifted" is very much a niche market: few people are gifted, so few people, by definition, are going to seek out information relating to it. Yet, I am pleased, at this tally, for it means that, over the years, I have communicated, in some way, something, to over 200,000 people - or at least, 200,000 times, since a certain, unknown, proportion will be repeat visitors.

There are so many blogs in the world that I calculated, once, that were everyone who is connected to the internet, to read one blog a day, the average blog would, literally, have a handful of readers. No doubt that is, in fact, the case. So, given that, my 200,000 readers in less than three years, is not, in fact, a bad total. It indicates a significantly greater than average interest, in my material, by the global internet audience.

I have a certain target for my third year, of blogging, which I have not yet reached. I set myself the target of exceeding the total readership for the first two years combined, in my third year. We will see on September 19th 2009 - which will be the third birthday of my blog - whether I achieve it.

In the meantime, thank you all, for reading. I know that many of the ones who have written comments have enjoyed it. I can only hope that those who have not written comments, are enjoying it, quietly!

If you have enjoyed any of my blog posts, why not tell others about it, and let them enjoy it, too?

Anyway, I now am going to have a cup of tea, to celebrate (being a non-drinker...)

(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.

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

The consequences of blogging success.

Success at blogging is a fine mixture of persistence, writing skill and luck. Recently, I have got "lucky" and find that my blog traffic has grown tremendously. This is mainly due to the linking to my blog, by a few major sites that have decided it is appropriate to do so. The results have been startling.

To give you an idea of the change, I will detail my blog traffic over the past week. Last Thursday, I had 341 visitors, for the day; last Friday, 264. These are typical days. On Saturday, I had 248 visitors and on Sunday (always the quietest day) there were 207 visitors. All this is fairly normal for a week. However, on Monday, I had 1,452 visitors; on Tuesday, I had 9,664 visitors; on Wednesday, I had 1,237 visitors and today, so far with half the day left to go, I have had 1,658 visitors. This is very strange. The previous peak day over my two years of blogging was a peak of 3,000 when news of Ainan's achievements first broke in Malaysia. Most of the visitors, then, were from Malaysia. This time, the visitors are from all over the world, since the connecting sites have a global readership.

Were I to use a literary analogy, it is as if I have suddenly jumped from the "midlist" of blogging, into bestsellerdom...at least for the time being. I will have to confess that this makes writing my blog feel like a different kind of exercise. No longer am I writing for a select bunch of people "in the know", in the equivalent of a modest auditorium. No, I am now writing for a global audience of thousands, in the equivalent of a stadium. It feels very different. It feels as if I should now be more careful...yet that is not a feeling that I want. You see, what I have liked about blogging is its freedom. There is no editor, apart from myself, when I blog. There is no other power to say "yeah" or "nay" to my words or what I write - and I enjoy that freedom and have used it fully. If an enlarged audience should lead me to feel somehow inhibited, that would be a pity. I need, as a writer, to feel that freedom to write as I will - for that is what, for me, blogging is all about. It is the ultimate expression of mental freedom, since, only in the blogging format, are there no real restrictions as to what a writer says (except for legal ones, of course). In all other formats - be it for a newspaper, or in a book, there is always another person or people with a say in what the author is allowed to say.

I hope in a few days, I will get used to writing, now, for a much larger audience and that I am able to be as free as I was before. Logically, I think, it should be something I can do - but there is an illogical element in human matters, where feelings are concerned. It IS different to speak to a small room and to a large stadium, in real life - and it feels different, too, on this blog. It is not long since I could look at the records of everyone who visited and come to understand what led them to read my blog, where they were from and what they were searching for. I can't do that now. There are just too many readers. So, I have to be content, now, to write for a large crowd, instead of having a quiet conversation with a few "in the know".

If you are new to my blog: welcome. I try to update it daily and I write about many things - not just giftedness (though this is a common topic). I always write about social issues of relevance to many people and any issue that I feel is worthy of remark, be it the survival of mankind, or the nature of success.

Thank you for deciding to visit and read my words. Don't judge the whole on the contents of one or two posts, for there are many different kinds of posts here. Just take your time to read around. Most people should be able to find something of interest to them. The Guide to Scientific Child Prodigy is a link at the bottom of every post. It is helpful but does not list all posts, just most of them.

Best wishes to you all, wherever you are from.

(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.

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