Fifth Blogiversary

My first post* at Outside the Beltway was at 9:47 the morning of January 31, 2003. If my math is right, that was five years ago.

When I started this thing, the blogosphere was in its infancy, with most of the big political sites no more than a year or two old. There were still regular Big Media pieces explaining, often incorrectly, exactly what a “blog” was. Now, the most popular blogs are getting traffic numbers rivaling newspaper circulation rates and one can envision in the not-too-distant future a day when we’ll have to explain to the kids what a “newspaper” was.

In the last five years, I’ve written 16,675 posts here — some of them even good. My various co- and guest bloggers have added another 3000 or so: Rodney Dill (848), Steve Verdon (810), Kate McMillan (281), Alex Knapp (145), Greg Tinti (136), Dave Schuler (128), Steven Taylor (110), Richard Gardner (103), Chris Lawrence (69), Robert Prather (38), Dodd Harris (27), John Burgess (25), Steve Bainbridge (6), Aaron Brazell (5), and Bill Jempty (1). (Robert Tagorda and Leopold Stotch were also early contributors but their user accounts are no longer in the database, even though their posts are still part of the archives. According to my Fourth Blogiversary post, they had 240 and 152 posts, respectively.)

We’re a couple weeks shy of hitting the 25 million unique visitor mark on SiteMeter, which is the only measure I have that goes back more-or-less to the beginning of the site (February 4th); others have been lost and different metrics used as we’ve switched site hosts.

Thanks, as always, to all who visit, comment, and link.

_________

Related:

*That post, and the first three months’ worth, were at Blogspot at a URL that has since been hijacked. Thankfully, all the posts were migrated to this domain.

FILED UNDER: Blogosphere, OTB History, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Elmo says:

    Keep up the good work Doc, the Mrs., Rappin’ Rod, and all da gang.

    Newspapers? I heard about them back in them ole days. Before the PC crowd forced us to use other things, for lining the bottom of our bird cages.

  2. FireWolf says:

    Happy Birthday James! I’ll be reading for another 5 years (Unless you close up shop before then, in which case my world will collapse)

    Ok, maybe not, but, keep up the great work!

  3. rodney dill says:

    Congratulations!

  4. Steve Plunk says:

    Thank you for hosting such a fine place for the exchange of ideas and opinions.

  5. Happy blogging anniversary

    Bill

  6. Congratulations!

  7. Derrick says:

    Congrats, on your blogoversary!! OTB definitely stands as one of the smartest blogs in the blogosphere that allows a pretty broad ideological fan base. Keep it up.

  8. David Harris says:

    Congratulations. It’s a fine place you’ve got here. Keep up the good work.

  9. Cernig says:

    Congrats and many happy return, James. You know I’m a fan of your sane-conservative outlook.

    Regards, Cernig @ Newshoggers

  10. Tano says:

    Congratulations and many thanks James, for all the hard work you have done to make this such an excellent site.

  11. Dave Schuler says:

    Congratulations, James. Only 128? I’d better get cracking.