Not That I’m Bitter
My old political blog, which I abandoned in May, 2009, still gets nearly four times as much traffic as this blog, which I write on every single day.
My old political blog, which I abandoned in May, 2009, still gets nearly four times as much traffic as this blog, which I write on every single day.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:30 PM
I know you’ve written about this before, but WHY do you think this is?
January 28th, 2010 at 10:28 PM
Couple of points.
1. The market is a demanding boss
2. It takes time to build a following, you of all people should know this
3. Sometimes I go there to follow a link to an old blog that I would like to visit, so I use it as a link service
4. You never made any attempt to migrate your clients to your new business…..clearly a pro-active choice, but a smart one?
January 29th, 2010 at 8:13 AM
As you no doubt remember, Pursuit, I wrote about other things than politics at my “political” blog. I decided to keep those occasionally risque cultural observations distinct from my new project in the more gentle world of wine, in order to keep them out of any due-diligence process that might include this blog.
January 29th, 2010 at 8:20 AM
As for you Randy, I think it’s because the audience for political blogs is significantly larger than the audience for wine blogs, which is not exactly ringing testimony of the job we wine bloggers are doing. The habits of wine blog readers appear to be different, too. Take my friend Pursuit, who stops by here every couple of days. On the old blog, he was in a couple of times a day to spout neo-blather designed specifically to get Wally to jump out of his skin.
The old blog ran six years and almost all the current traffic is coming through as Google searches. A blog that runs that long and touches the issues of the day, every day, is going to show up on Google a lot.
Also, per Pursuit, it does take a while to build a following. It takes a while to find a blog’s creative voice as well. The voice and the following are, I think, a collaboration between blog and audience. It takes a while for the two things to find each other.
January 31st, 2010 at 1:49 PM
This last point of yours is key. I could adopt my approach to your old blog and use it here, but for one thing, I’m trying to be a bit more sensitive to what you’re accomplishing here, and secondly I need to find a narrative and a couple characters to play off of. No worries, I’ll get there.
Oh, and one other problem you might be having is that most Americans have little or no taste, so a blog trying to discuss wine will by its nature have a limited audience.
January 31st, 2010 at 9:34 PM
I read this wine blog because you write it. I look in on few others that you have recommended because I respect your eye for good writing. But mostly I don’t care what other people think about wine. If what The Bob says doesn’t matter why should I need to know what Norman in Poughkipsie is drinking tonight? I have a constant feedback loop with my clients already to tell me what I need to know about changing market conditions and my wholesalers work hard to make sure I know about new wines as they become available. If I need more information I ask for a sample (or buy one) and the wine tells me everything under my enhanced interrogation techniques.
February 16th, 2010 at 10:52 PM
First, Kentucky is full of political junkies, where everyone has something to say. Wine as you have indicated in other postings has their geeks or faux geeks, but mostly it is made up of unsure consumers or those who, while are content to drink their favorite bargains, but are embarrassed or intimidated to admit it.
And bluntly, your voice is not known locally. There has to be a way to get you some local press that gets you general market notice.