Housekeeping: Postscript

I think I spoke too soon about keeping up the effort involved in compiling PMD. I just reviewed my Google Analytics reports for June, and the readership of the blog has dropped precipitously. There was a slowing down in my frequency of posting, but not too drastic a slowing down, and yet the number of visits, unique visitors, and page-views were all off drastically. The average time spent on site was way down, too, and it has never been long enough to browse, let alone read, one of the daily entries. The same few Google searches relating to The Sopranos, The Apprentice winner Bill Rancic, and some menswear topics (black and white spectator wingtips, Bermuda shorts) have been driving the majority of visitors to the blog for months. Hmm, not exactly what I have in mind.

I love researching this blog because every subject it touches on interests me greatly; I will do that spadework in any case. I love writing it, too, but making the entries good on a daily basis is terrifically time-consuming. Now that I am working full-time again, of course my available time has diminished, and so the hours spent on composing PMD cut very considerably into my leisure for actual book reading, movie watching, music listening. If the readership had grown over the life of the blog, I'd happily make that sacrifice. But it hasn't, and so maybe I shouldn't.  

Probably it is time for another format change. PMD has had several. It has gone on hiatus a few times as well, and has always come back; I'm not interested in killing it and I never have. It disappoints me, of course, that the format of canvasing the broader cultural world on a daily basis that I started in December 2009 has not "caught on," not even a wee bit. The world has fragmented, and most people seem to be mainly interested in a niche or two. I cannot be that way; it would be utterly foreign to my nature. I am grateful for the few kindred spirits who have found what I do here to be interesting or appealing.

I may take a little break and then return with posts that cover the same territory in a way that is more manageable for me. I certainly enjoy having the writing outlet. Right now I'm also writing in detail on my Korean experiences for a very select group (that will remain so, for self-protective reasons).

Therefore I'm not really going away, maybe not even for as long as a few days. I might post later today; it depends on what occurs to me. But I think that the June 24 post will be the last of the long-format daily entries with lots of weblinks and the enumeration of birthdays (even that part takes plenty of work) -- at least for now. Those entries lasted six months, and they were a blast to write.