My 1,000th BCM Blog

This is my 1000th blog, under the brand “Bull City Mutterings” (BCM) that is, and nearly all have been essays.  Long before BCM, my posts began as “reynblog.”

I’ve been blogging for about eight or nine years now, dating back to before the term was added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and well before what is now Facebook was first launched on the Harvard campus. 

There were already about 20 million, or so, blogs back when I started to blog, about three or four years after the term had first been coined, so I’m certainly no pioneer.

Today there are nearly twice that number on Blogger alone, which is the platform I use, and as of last month, there were 173 million in existence, if you toss in the mini-blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

When I first began to post blogs it was once a month or so, usually adapting or elaborating upon something I had written for the newsletter published by the organization where I worked until retirement a few years ago.

By the time I rebranded as “Bull City Mutterings” midway through 2005 I was posting an average of one every other day, sometimes less.  Readership, although never my objective, had grown to 500 a month about the average per daily post today before they are occasionally picked up and reposted by aggregators.

In retirement I indulge a wide range number of passions including many that are personal and many that were part of my lifelong career in community-destination marketing such as reading, research and the study and adaptation of best practices -- only I do it solely for pleasure today.  The eclectic mix of my posts reflects my interests and often my passions.

People ask me what I typically do everyday and it varies.  Sometimes it involves spontaneous motorcycle rides or cross country trips or photography or family history or volunteer work, but it always involves quality time with my constant companion, Mugsy an English Bulldog, dinner with close friends and connecting with family -- most frequently with my daughter who is an incredible single mom, a healthcare attorney and my only child.

But I also spend an average of 5 to 6 hours a day including weekends with the research and distillation of essays some of which become blog posts but all of which are for the pure joy and excitement of learning new things, forming ideas and writing.

I'm always amazed that the readership of my blogs is so diverse geographically, including many foreign countries, and that the majority are often new readers.  I'm always grateful when I learn that a post has been useful to someone, especially young people but I hope it's never offensive that my only reason for writing these essays is the pure joy of it.

For the full info graphic report from Nielsen on digital access including INCITE’s trendline for the number of blogs click here.