January was certainly an interesting month. We saw the inauguration of a new United States President in Barack Obama. I went to Las Vegas for another gadget fest at the Consumer Electronics Show. Businesses around the world experienced (few) highs and (many) lows with the ongoing recession. And credit card bills with our holiday spending started pouring in through our mailboxes.
It was a busy month for many of us, so I thought it would be apt to provide a brief review of the month that was. Here’s what happened on Beyond the Rhetoric during January 2009.
Most Popular Posts
Although I encourage you to subscribe to my feed, which is also available in the form of free email updates, you may have missed the odd post here and there. Listed below are the five most popular posts from January, based on number of page views. From nice hotels to inspirational reading, I had you covered.
- Our Suite at Encore Las Vegas (Wynn)
- Five Books Written by Barack Obama
- Tax Writeoffs for Freelance Business Owners
- Transcending Hopes and Dreams
- Do You Want to Be Normal?
Top Referring Sites
While the vast majority of the traffic to this blog still comes from search engines and social media (follow me on Twitter!), there are still a few sources of “organic” traffic. Ignoring sources like Google and StumbleUpon, here are the top five referring sites for BTR.
Top Thinkers of January
Where would Beyond the Rhetoric be without you? Some people call them top commentators but I like to think of the folks who leave comments on this blog as thinkers. They’ve got something on their minds and they want to share it with you (and me). Not surprisingly, our good friend Nick soared to the top of the list. Again. He tends to do that.
Will anyone be able to take the top title away from Nick this month? Will it be you? I’m sure he’d welcome the challenge. Maybe I’ll even throw in a free prize to the top commentator top thinker for February…
Glad to see that I can send some traffic your way! It must be that sexy 125×125 banner that’s been in rotation on my sidebar π
You seem almost disappointed that I made the top thinker spot again π Perhaps I should not be so willing to share my thoughts?
Oh, I’m glad you made the list. I just want you to have some competition. π
Fair enough. It would be cool if more people gathered to converse here, it seems like there used to be a few more people who would comment on here a bit more but haven’t been recently. Oh well, their loss I guess. As long as your subscriber and traffic numbers haven’t dropped…
I agree. It would be cool if more people commented. Not sure what ever happened to guys like Jorge who used to comment here more.
Well he has it now…:-)
Nick will be hard to beat. If I remember right, he had about 5 times as many comments as the second Top Thinker, Gary Jones.
Nice memory, Dan. Nick had about 30 comments to Gary’s 7.
Thanks for the mention. I’m trying to read/catch up on a regular basis, but things have been busy…!
While my site is based on Educational Technology, I’m trying to grow it through networking and social media. I hope that the links that I’ve added to it start sending a few visitors to this site.
Well, I know some people I might have to send your way as they use social media AND are educators π
Thanks Nick I appreciate it.
Not a problem…now I just have to remember to do it π
I’m always working on using social media to get traffic to my sites. I’m finding it’s a good source at the beginning, but then slowly dies off. If only there was a way to keep the momentum going without putting too much effort into things. Laziness. π