I’m a little bit late to announce this, but theBrickBlogger.com had its first birthday on January 1st! 😀
Although I set up this LEGO blog sometime in November of 2010, I didn’t do much with it for a couple of months. I had some vague idea of sharing some of my own LEGO creations and some tips & trick I have learned in the LEGO hobby, but that was about it.
However right around Christmas of 2010 I got inspired to find a way to remove the then newly glued LEGO magnet minifigures. I remember spending New Years Eve experimenting in the kitchen with different methods, feeling like some mad scientist on a quest for the elixir of life. That post was published on January 1st of 2011, and it is still the most visited page on this website. (See here: Glued Magnet Minifig Removal) It is also when I caught the blogging-bug and started to write on a regular basis. Therefore I count the 1st of the year as the official birthday of theBrickBlogger. So yeah, happy birthday bloggy!
I thought to share with you some interesting stats on this day. I know data-miners love this kind of stuff, so here you go!
As you can see theBrickBlogger.com is growing at a steady pace. In December it finished off with just below an average of 5,000 visits a day, which is continuing with an upward trend so far in January of this year. It would be nice to make it to 10,000 visitors a day this year! 🙄
This is theBrickBlogger.com visitor map, with visitors from 186 countries – that’s almost every country in the world! 50% of visitors are from the USA, 10% from the UK, then comes Canada, Germany, Australia… all well-known for their strong LEGO fan-base. But I’m really curious about visitors from places like Greenland, the Falkland Islands, the Maldives, Botswana and Nepal. Are they really LEGO fans, or just stumbled upon this website by accident? (If you are a LEGO-fan from these unique places please raise your hand! We would love to hear from you!) And what I would really like is at least one visitor from Tristan de Cunha, a tiny volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic, known as the most remote place in the world.
Here are some other fun stats you might like:
- Total number of posts: 224
- Total number of comments: 3,826
- Total number of spam comments: 99,600 😡
- Total number of subscribers: 220
- Total number of likes on Facebook Page: 368
- Total number of followers on Twitter: 204
- Total number of subscribers on YouTube: 1 (our original YouTube channel was deleted by accident, so please re-subscribe!)
- Total number of break-in attempts: 6 (yeah, that’s scary!) 😐
What I cherish most about blogging is the friendships I had formed with fellow LEGO fans; both those who are visitors to this site, and friends I have made at other LEGO blogs and forums and at the LEGO Company.
TheBrickBlogger has grown much bigger than I have originally envisioned and it is still growing in ways I have never imagined. This is no longer just my blog, but a place for LEGO fans to share their love for the LEGO hobby both by building and by writing.
I especially would like to thank our regular contributors; Sarah, William, Maxx and Gary. Their contributions have given theBrickblogger a diversity I could have never achieved alone. I would also like to thank Steph -who wrote a wonderful post on her childhood LEGO memories, Milos – who wanted to write something controversial and certainly achieved it, Shilo for his excellent tutorials (I still have to upload a couple) and Quad – who has been a bit shy setting up his own contributor’s page, but who nevertheless wrote two excellent tutorials. He is a TFOL (Teen-Fan-of-LEGO) wise beyond his years. Thank you all for your contribution!
I would also like to thank our regular readers and commenters, many of whom significantly contribute to this website by helping out other readers, answering questions on posts, alerting us of LEGO news, and in general making my job much easier. If any of you would like to step up and write full posts just let me know.
As far as my vision for 2012, my plan is to continue facilitating the growth of theBrickBlogger by writing regularly, and especially by supporting those who would like to share their passion of the LEGO hobby by writing. Although there are many LEGO forums around, a blogging platform is much more conducive to writers as it gives more lasting visibility. And if you have any suggestions on how we can improve theBrickBlogger, or if you would like us to cover a particular topic, let us know in the comment section below.
So, happy first birthday to theBrickBlogger! May there be many more! 😛
