Two Years In the Blogosphere

Hey, I just realized it’s my two-year Blog-o-freaking-versary. In ways it seems an eternity since Marty Thau, Mike Crooker and I started the Tres Producers site in February of 2002 on the dreaded blogspot and started fumbling our way toward blogging ecstasy.

I had just finished putting together a book proposal on 9/11 and the Internet with Marty, and was working on music with Mike, and we were all interested in checking out this new blogging thing.

Though it was slow going at first – when isn’t it? – by that April we had established a beachhead among the blogorati and were tossing around ideas for a new site that would function as a clearinghouse for bloggers to collectively place reviews and harness their collective might and similar such grandiose notions of world domination. Actually, we thought it might be a fun way to get some free CDs and more traffic and stuff.

From that small and venal beginning in August 2002 did Blogcritics grow into whatever the hell we are today. Actually, we are something I am very proud of and grateful for, with 400 writers, 11,946 stories, 42,109 comments, and now about 20,000 readers each day. Praise the Lord and pass the Janet Jackson.

Besides our terrific writers, we have had a lot of help along the way – check out the top referrers on the left sidebar, a bizarre and eclectic blend indeed – from bloggers, the online media and quite a bit of positive attention from the mainstream media – note awards and crap on the right sidebar.

In these two years, blogs have gone from a purely amateur avocation to a profession that actually earns SOME money for SOME people, which is a lot better than NO money for NO people, as it was then. Another big thanks to Henry at Blogads, who took a quixotic idea – that people would pay for advertising on freaking blogs – and has stuck with it until they actually do.

There are just too many names to start naming them, but please look at the sidebars on the front page of Blogcritics for the prime suspects, and check out the *-people on the full list of Blogcritics, and our overachievers on the leaderboard.

On the technical side, since I don’t know shit, I’d still be on blogspot without the help of Glenn Frazier getting us up and running on Movable Type, Stacy Tabb for carryig the flag during a crucial period, and our long-suffering Philllip Winn for doing everything since. And then there’s Dawn, or course, and my kids who have been very supportive from the beginning.

Special thanks to my friends at Cleveland.com and MSNBC as well – they have believed.

Thanks to you all for welcoming me into your worlds and joining me in mine – it has been a great two years.