January 2009 in review (updated)

01Feb
by Maximilian C. Forte

In Review: Statistics since Day One

  • This blog was started on 11 October 2007 (with some posts imported from previous blogs, that predate the launch of this particular blog).
  • December 2008 was by far the busiest month for writing, with 51 posts.
  • The number of visitors to this blog steadily increased each month, from a low of 378 views for the very first month (Oct. 2007), to 11,000 visitors by the end of November of 2008.
  • In December, a radical change occurred, with the overall number of visitors for that month jumping to almost 19,000.
  • That was exceeded in the following month: for January of 2009, the total number of visitors was over 28,000.
  • The total number of visitors this blog as received since its first day is 116,306.
  • The site that refers the most traffic to this blog is metafilter.com.

Since the Open Anthropology Project consists of a cluster of sites, and not just this blog, I should also report on the progress of the related sites:

Related Sites:

  • 1D4TW, has received only 5,200 visitors since it started in August of 2008, and I have been losing interest in maintaining it, preferring to use it more for discussion of Canadian politics, or for displaying images and videos which appear better there.
  • Videos in my YouTube channel have apparently received 54,700 views since the channel first started in October of 2006. Half that number of visitors viewed one single video in particular: Bingo Bango Bongo. It seems that 1950s children’s television is still a major draw (?).
  • Open Anthropology TV has received 11,900 visitors since the video collection was started in May of 2008.
  • openanthropology.org has received 1,029 unique visitors from 04 October 2008 when it was launched, to 01 February 2009.

Peaks of interest?

The most popular posts in December 08 and January 09 had to do with “breaking news” — either news that appeared first on this blog, such as the occupation of the New School in New York (this first post receiving 3,000 views), or news that was reported here first about the death of U.S. contractor, Paula Loyd, who was working with the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System in Afghanistan (that post receiving 2,400 views), as well as posts that surround each of these two issues.

In addition, posts dealing with the Greek riots in December, and the Israeli war against in Gaza throughout this month were the ones to attract the greatest number of readers.

Sometimes, within this context, it is the simplest of posts that receive the greatest number of hits — my all time number one post in terms of views was simply, “Live Cam on Gaza,” receiving 4,700 visitors as of this moment. Likewise, where people could find videos of Paula Loyd as in, “On the conduct of military ‘contractors’ in Afghanistan: In the words of Paula Loyd,” it has received 3,700 visitors thus far. The Paula Loyd videos in my YouTube channel have now become virtual memorial sites for those who knew her, or sympathized with her work or felt aggrieved by her death.

Finally, apparently people are curious to know who I am, so that my top page is “About the Blogger,” with over 1,740 views overall.

Report for January 2009

Top search terms, by category and in order of most hits within each category:

  • gaza live cam, live cam gaza, live gaza cam, live cam from gaza, gaza live cams, live camera gaza, livecam gaza, gaza live stream, live webcam gaza, live cam in gaza, gaza cam live, cam live gaza, gaza cam, gaza live webcam, live camera from gaza, live camera in gaza
  • paula loyd, “paula loyd,” don ayala, “don ayala,” paula loyd afghanistan, human terrain system
  • idi amin,  michael ignatieff, abu ghraib, guantanamo torture, patrick brazeau, john stanton, shit stain
  • open anthropology, openanthropology

GAZA — top posts, ordered by most hits received:

  1. Live Cam on Gaza
  2. On which planet does the Associated Press live?
  3. Campus Gaza: Academic Boycotts and Complicit Silence
  4. Gaza Solidarity Protests Across Canada Today
  5. Accepting the Might to Exist: Some Israeli Lessons for Anthropology
  6. Uprising News for Jan. 9, 2009: Greece, Gaza
  7. Montréal Solidarity Demonstration for Gaza, January 10, 2009
  8. Because They are Dirty Arabs… (63 diggs)
  9. Boycott Israel: Montreal Professors and Academic Employees
  10. SIXTEEN BRITISH UNIVERSITIES OCCUPIED IN SOLIDARITY WITH GAZA: Three Thousand Cheers for Student Protest!
  11. Noam Chomsky: Obama’s position on Gaza is “approximately the Bush position”
  12. News from the War of Choice: Gaza Links for 18 January 2009
  13. Currently Covering and Commenting on the Gaza Massacre
  14. Israel: What is being defended? Who is the victim?
  15. Get Ready Montreal for Sunday, January 25: Next Demonstration Against the War in Gaza
  16. Tweets of Conflict in the New Online War Zone
  17. Gaza is Dying: Global Movement to End the War
  18. Obama as Intermission for Gaza: Mass Murder Hits the Pause Button
  19. Gaza Q & A by Stephen Shalom
  20. An Unfolding Pattern of Genocide: Notes from Gaza
  21. GazaTalk: New Media Resistance
  22. Message to Obama: From an Undefeated Hamas
  23. Gaza, West Bank: Settlements and Borders

MILITARIZATION, IMPERIALISM, HUMAN TERRAIN — top posts, ordered by most hits received:

  1. The Unreported Death of Staff Sgt. Paula Loyd of the Human Terrain System: Third Researcher to Die
  2. Gassing Puppies, Burning Women, and Playing Tennis
  3. John Stanton: Hamas’ IT Tops Human Terrain System IT in Internet Capability, Savvy (2.1)
  4. Bumming a Ride with the Occupation Parade: A Look at Human Terrain Teams in Afghanistan
  5. Contemporary Colonial Scholarship and the Spreading Human Terrain System: AGS Bowman Expeditions, Zapotec Indians, and onto the Caribbean
  6. Kenneth Anderson: Imperial Clash on the Congo Resource Front
  7. America’s New Counterinsurgency Doll: On Store Shelves this January 20
  8. The Afghanistan Scam and the American Path to Failure

GENERAL — top posts, ordered by most hits received:

  1. Why do “Leftist” Professors Predominate in Academia?
  2. One Year Later: Viva Roi Kwabena!
  3. Round Table: “The Anthropologist in Mined Fields”
  4. “In Complete World” at the International Ethnographic Film Festival of Quebec, 2009
  5. subMedia News for Jan. 9, 2009

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2 thoughts on “January 2009 in review (updated)”

  1. Dylan

    Great output Max. Keep it up!! You do a great service, and offer needed perspectives not only to the field but a wider community to. Even though im hidden these days trying to get my dissertation done i am still a regular visitor. Much smarter for it too. Hope all is well!!

  2. Maximilian Forte

    Thanks very much Dylan, and in fact it was only yesterday that I visited your latest post, and I had been wondering where you had gone to. Now that I know, I am wishing you the very best for your dissertation. Your writing and your analyses are great, so I would be really surprised if you encountered any obstacles to acceptance of the work. Thanks again and keep well.

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