Top posts of 2009, what were they thinking?

The new Year is the time to look back and reflect on the year past as well as to make resolutions for the coming 12 months.  This year has been a slow one for Jerry D Russell dot Com, but even having said that there are certain posts that have managed to gain the attention of readers more than others.

Some of these posts I would have expected to be popular.  Some of the others on the list are a shock to me, if only because they prove the power of sponsored posts or because they are those rare, completely off-topic posts that every blog sees now and again. For whatever reason, these are the most viewed posts here on my little slice of the web for the year.  Lets take a quick look back, shall we?

1. 100% Aptana, the only IDE you'll ever need for web development

2. 34%  Fedora vs. Ubuntu

3. 19%  Evony - A great way to waste a lot of valuable time

4. 10%  Set Yourself Up for Success: Set Reasonable Goals

5. 8%   The last chapter drags on...

6. 7%   Coming to terms with a life outside of bloging

7. 6%   The End!

8. 6%   Looking for a Sony Vaio or Toshiba Satellite Notebook?

9. 6%   Beware the non-humans

10. 5%   Party on, Dude!

The first two posts are exactly what this blog is about. Open source tools, productivity and getting things done. Granted, the second is just a brief discussion of my opinion of two popular operating systems, but it is still very much on topic for what I write about here. (I’m not into giving Steve and Bill any more of my hard earned money, so I’m very Linux oriented when I’m not on a Mac.)

The third most popular post of the year was just a quick review of an online roll playing game I was briefly obsessed with.  I never expected it to be popular, I just wanted to write a few words.  A complete diversion from the norm, but worth it in terms of traffic.

In slots four through six we’re back to posts that cover productivity, goal setting and the challenges of blogging and writing.  All totally normal content for Jerry D Russell dot com, though I must admit that some aren’t the best written articles I’ve ever done.

The ninth most popular had nothing to do with anything at all. It was a personal interjection and lamentation about a PS3 addiction I was having at the moment. (Resistance, Fall of Man does that to me..) It was less than 200 words and completely off topic, yet here it sits on the top ten list.  Amazing.

The two that completely baffled me were numbers 8 and 10. Both of these are sponsored posts that I did early on in the year.  Sure, they are as well written as anything else here. Of course I tried to make them fit into the general flow, but I never dreamed that they would end up being two of my most popular posts from the year.

Just goes to show you that sponsored posts do have the ability to get an advertisers message across if they’re posted in the correct venue and written at least fairly well.

I’m sure that next year will have very different results, especially considering that my posting frequency will be increasing by tenfold, but it will be interesting to see which posts end up here in 2010.

Peace. I’m out

Popularity: 3% [?]