All good things must come to an end. In the time since that idiom was first coined, whole nations have risen and entire empires have fallen. And yet, despite all that has gone before, I like many others did not listen. I was seduced by the possibility that things could only ever go up, could only get bigger, that there was no downward slope. But I have paid for my hubris, now I know all too well that the possibility of infinite growth within the confines of a finite system is a quaint illusion. To believe otherwise is folly.
Since I started this blog I have been enthralled by its statistics, the bar-charts, the numbers, the global demographics. As months went by I saw those bars grow and grow. At the end of 2012 I hit an all time record of 1608 hits in a single month. Then it all started to go downhill…
I’ve been at this blog lark now for little over 2 years and against all logical reason or personal expectation I found that people visited it. Whether intentionally or not, it hardly matters. But the monthly hit count progressively kept going up and up. Sure there was the odd blip where one month would be lower than the last, but things always sprang back the month after. They define a recession as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Things move quicker on the internet. An awful lot quicker. The ships of state and the economic power houses are vast, wallowing behemoths, sluggish and unwieldy things that take time to stir. For them two quarters is but a blink of the eye. But to a blog? Half a year is an eternity. Just a month is a forever in the world of the internet. And I’m staring down the barrel of a second month of dropping hits.
The real question is what should I do? How can I avert this travesty and forestall the further haemorrhaging of visitors? Can I stimulate my blog economy through pictures of boobs and cats? The Internet’s go-to answer to quantitative easing. Or must I resort to grim austerity measures? Do I have to start limiting blog posts to a hundred words, none of which can be over six letters or two syllables. Will that be enough for me to weather the storm caused by this dearth of traffic? I don’t have a budget so I can’t cut deficit spending. Nor can I offer my readers tax breaks because they never give me anything to start with (tight bastards that they are.) I am at a loss.
After careful deliberation I have decided I have only one sensible course of action available. I am going to ignore it, carry on as normal, and hope it sorts itself out. It’s either that or resort to the foul, black majiks of SEO. Things are not quite that desperate. Not yet at least…
The Rogue Verbumancer 
March 11th, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Of course carry on as normal. It’s not that terrifying an effect: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Regression_to_the_mean
March 11th, 2013 at 5:53 pm
SCIENCE!
Well, maybe not exactly. But shouting “PROBABILITY!” or “STATISTICS!” Doesn’t sound as good.
March 11th, 2013 at 1:33 pm
Write on! (this man has some relevant wisdom here: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzma6fbUVL1qapwj6o1_500.png)
Seriously though, grappling with hit numbers and trying to work out what the internet wants or how to get people engaged is a nonsensical nightmare fraught with despair and loathing. I personally can’t comprehend any of it at all and (partly because the figures are so ridiculously low) don’t even look at ’em. You’re best off just trusting your instincts and writing/creating what you want as if no one is watching (’cause, chances are, they aren’t). Ignorance is bliss! Write on!
March 11th, 2013 at 5:53 pm
I think all previous success was down to nothing more than blind luck