One Year Anniversary for This Site

Today is the one year anniversary for Wangjianshuo’s Blog. The website was setup on Sept 11, 2002, which is exactly one year ago.

The Begining

At that time, I was inspired by a blog RussianLegs.com on Sept 3, 2003, I am thinking about setting up my own blog.

So on Sept 11, 2003 (just coincident to the one year anniversary of Sept 11 event), I setup MovableType on the desktop computer in my reading room (the computer has been selt out at 2500 RMB later), and wrote my first blog entry MovableType Successfully Installed on Windows XP. It turned out to one of the most valuable entry on the whole website. I am happy that this entry helped a lot of bloggers to start MovableType on Windows based platform.

The Effort

From that day, I started to write daily on this blog. This is what Geo from Russianlegs.com told me when I asked how much time he used to maintain his blog: “Everyday, I spent 15 minutes to write the blog and 15 minutes to edit it”.

I followed the rule but some time I spent more than 1 hour on a long article and sometimes only take 5 minutes to note down what is happening.

The Blog

Now one year has past, here is the statistic for the blog (as you can see on the right side of my home page)

Created: Sept 11, 2002

Entries: 316

Categories: 7

Page views/day: ~ 4K

Comments: 2387

Location: Shanghai, China

Author: Jian Shuo Wang

Update Frequency: daily

It seems I am doing pretty well in the last year that I created 316 entries in the 365 days, making write rate of 87%. This certain include the long week in Daocheng when there is no mobile signal, no electricity and let alone network. The second long absence in blogging is in February, when I was on busy business trip to Beijing. Besides that, I believe I ALMOS kept this blog updated everyday. Wow. What an accomplishment, I didn’t think about that I can keep doing something continuous for one year or longer. I typically would give up half way or earlier.

The Reason

The reasons I kept the hard work (sometimes) are the feedbacks and comments on this blog. It is such an interesting place that people share the same interest gather and interactive with other. I got 2387 comments under 316 posts, making the average comment/post rate 7.55. That is impressive number, I believe. From the comments, I see people are happy either because I provided some valuable information about topics like Shanghai, SARS, Pudong Airport, OT715 or Windows Media web cam, or because I shared my personal life and experience like going to Daocheng, learn to drive, even to buy a mountain. Actually, I was really flattered by the good words.

The Popularity

In the previous year, the site becomes a little bit famous among search engines and media. My Google PageRank reached PR5 and become the target for some common term, like Pu Dong Airport. Meanwhile, it was featured on some local magazines like Shanghai Magazine. Thus the highest hit rate reached to 5K some time.

The Friends

I also treasure the relationship I built within the blogging world. I have a lot of friends who monitors and reference to my site consistently but I never linked back. It is because they are all in Chinese and from my site log, majority of my readers cannot read Chinese. I felt bad not doing that. These sites are: Chinese Tea (by Christina), IsaacMao.com (by Isaac Mao), Joycode (by Joy Wang), Tiger Cafe (by Raymond) and lots of others sites.

I’d like to celebrate the one year anniversary and share the happiness with you. I’d like to thank Wendy for her support. Click here for a complete list of the 316 articles.

4 thoughts on “One Year Anniversary for This Site

  1. Congratulations, Jian Shuo! It is a tremendous accomplishment to have carried out a project like this with such commitment and success for an entire year. You deserve to be feeling very proud of yourself. I would have to count myself among the readers here who found you first when searching for information about Shanghai, but I have stayed because of the occasional personal glimpses you have allowed us into your own life, and because I enjoy learning more about other parts of the world through the eyes of people who live there. In the process, I have also learned a couple of interesting new things about computers (among all the things I didn’t even come *close* to understanding when you write about the technical stuff ;-) so that’s an extra benefit for this techno-dinosaur. Your site, and the way you present things, appeals to a wide variety of people and helps many of us broaden both our interests and our knowledge of the world. Thank you for sharing so much with so many!

  2. Carroll,

    Thanks for your congratulations and I’d specially to thank you for your kind private letters you sent to me. It made my life different by letting me know that in the other side of the world, there are someone who cares about me. I appreciated it so much! The past year of Sept 2002 – Sept 2003 is the blogging year for me and I gained so much – I was so concentrated in technology in the previously years – working on all the website technologies and programing stuff, but this year, I really feel the benift and impact technology has to people’s life. It makes life different. Getting to know so many people, including you, is such a great example for it.

    Thanks for being with me.

  3. :-)

    Well, it’s worth noting, Jian Shuo, that if you hadn’t made the decision to add a few of your personal insights, both about your surroundings, which of course was the original point of the Shanghai part of your blog, and about your personal experiences, I would have had neither the reason, nor the courage to comment at all. I think this is ample proof that the more people open themselves honestly to each other, the better the world will be.

    When my children were little I tried to teach them that the vast majority of people in the world are good, and will help you if you have a problem. Children today, especially in our crazy country I think, often grow up fearing strangers, which to me seems entirely backwards. Of course I taught my children to shy away from strangers who approached *them*, but I always explained at the same time that if they were ever in trouble and needed help, *they* could, (and immediately should!) go up to anyone who looked friendly (especially anyone who looked like they might be a mom ;) to ask for help.

    I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I think that you, by writing this blog (and others like you who write other blogs in all sorts of different languages), and maybe me by being brave enough to comment on things like this “in public”, really are helping to make the world a better place!

    Thanks for being with us!

  4. How great job you did in the pass entire year!! Your persistent effort to share your minds and thoughts through this weblog, give us abundant information and inspiration. Thanks Jin Shuo!

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