On December 23, 2003 I began keeping this blog, so today is the last day of my first free-standing blog's year, I had a short lived and badly kept LiveJournal blog prior to starting prolurker. As such it seemed like a good time to do a bit of reflection in preparation for the new year that begins tomorrow. I should note that I actually registered the URL and signed up with my ISP, 2Xtreme Media, in October 2003 but didn't get around to installing the software until December.

In looking at the history of the blog I have some general observations. First I had not planned for this to be a very personal blog. My idea was that the space would be used, that I didn't codify until March 12, 2004, was as follows:.

I started keeping this blog as a way to work through ideas and as a place to write. My primary focus in my entries is on my research and finishing my work toward a Ph.D. in Information Science. This is not purely a k-log since the blogger is also a living person. Rather it is a mixed genre with features of a k-log, a filter, and a diary. I expect to post an average of twice a week, daily would become mundane for both of us as my life is basically pretty average.

In essence that is still my view of what I want my blog to be a mixed genre space where I can try out ideas and write.

Several points have played out that are somewhat different then I had not expected:

• I am posting more then I had expected, with an average of 0.9 posts per day. That is substantially different then my expectation of posting twice per week, or 0.28 posts per day.
• The blog feels more personal then I had intended. I think this may well flow out of, at least partially out of, the volume of posting.
• Travel posts generate more traffic then any other post, even after I blocked folks from linking to them directly. This amazes me since I am one of those people who head for the door when someone else pulls out their travel slides. I originally started posting travel pictures, on the site, so that family and friends could see them without me having to repeatedly narrate the shots. Go figure.
• I garner very few comments to posts. This has been discussed in previous posts including December 12, 2004.
• Most comments are garnered by trackback, formal or informal, to posts where others comment on my blog.
• The Edulog Best Research Based Blog Nomination increased traffic to the blog in far greater numbers then the total vote for all categories at the awards. Thanks Lilia
• Post preparation takes far longer then I ever guessed. Primarily this is because I believe in using the medium to maximum effect and therefore link heavily within my posts, even personal posts. It takes time to find appropriate links and to add them to the posts.
• The blog layout has evolved over time. I started out with three categories to use for posts, now I have five - two of which are from the original grouping.
• When I began this blog I read very few blogs outside my research sets.
  Yes, I can hear the "I knew it"s from the group of folks that have been fairly vocal about qualitative research methods, particularly ethnographic methods, being the only way to do blog research. May I remind the court that our dataset is now well over 2000 blogs.

  But I digress. You can read more about this argument in this blog and at Geek-Guides.

  I read a group of roughly five blogs on at least a weekly basis back then. Now that most blogs are available in RSS feed, I read roughly 30 blogs as they post new information and several of those are aggregators.

• Reading more blogs has lead me to be more involved in trackback communication with other blogs - my commenting on their posts - then I had ever expected. This process has increased filter posts as well.

One of the primary reasons I began the blog was to give myself a space to write and a goal to work toward, 2 posts per week. I did this because at that point writing was torture for me. I would slide into a complete procrastination mode, leaving any and all writing to the very last second possible before a deadline. Now after a year of writing here, that has changed somewhat because of blogging. I do think it also has changed after spending a year presenting at conferences and seeing that my work was very well received across the disciplines.

The Future of Professional-Lurker

I expect a big change to be coming to prolurker shortly. Actually it's a two part change. First I will be upgrading software to expand functionality and make access by those nasty spammers more difficult. I will also be having the look of the site redesigned after the first of the year. The site currently runs on design defaults which worked in the early days, now that I get some serious traffic I want a better looking site. Wish I had time to do it myself but I simply do not. So if you do site design or know someone that does please let me know.

Finally I expect the topic range to center on the research and writing of my qualifying paper. That should be true until spring. Though if I have learned only one thing this year of blogging it would be that anything can happen.

Posted by prolurkr at December 22, 2004 12:28 PM

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