Between Dec. 1-31, 2010, The Obelisk received 314,110 page views. That’s according to Yahoo. Google puts it at 371,002. That is for the single month of December, and it’s more than I had for the entire year leading up to that point. After November, I felt good about 20,000. In December, we did that in a day after the forum went up. Seriously, the numbers for December were so astoundingly huge, I had to decrease the font size to make the image fit.

There was a dip for the holidays, but we still had visitors from all 50 states in the US and 114 other countries on six continents, including Senegal and Ethopia in Africa and Bhutan, Pakistan and Bangladesh in Southern Asia. There were even three visits from Azerbaijan! I don’t know about you, but I think that fucking rules.

Of course, the difference is the forum. As of today, Jan. 3, there are 426 registered users and over 8,500 posts. I’m hoping bands and labels will take to using the News/Band Updates board to fill people in on what’s happening, and that The Obelisk becomes the central hub and online resource of this scene. It’s a growing process, and clearly, it’s growing.

I hope you’ll take the time to register and check out the forums, and when/if you do, I hope you get some good out of them. I’m not planning any real changes in terms of how things are done on the blog proper, but I will be switching hosting companies in the near future, and that will rule. Really looking forward to that.

Here’s what else is up for January:

Kings Destroy: The album is selling well. I have 48 copies left and so far all the response I’ve seen has been positive. Of course I love And the Rest Will Surely Perish, but it’s nice to see it doing well with other critical types. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, do so here or in the sidebar of this page.

The Maple Forum: I’m not ready yet to announce what the next release will be. I’ve been teasing it for a while, and we’re almost there, just bear with me a little longer. And do yourself a favor — listen to Kings Destroy.

2010 Stuff: I’ll be posting the results of the readers poll in the next couple days. In the meantime, I want to thank Walter and the Roadburn crew for using one of my quotes for the top of their own readers poll list. If you haven’t checked that out yet, it’s here. I’ll have some loose ends stuff for 2010 to casually wrap this week, then we’ll get moving on the New Year in full force.

Interviews: I’m slated to talk to Laura Pleasants of Kylesa in about an hour, so stay tuned for that this week, and I’m also hoping to set up chats with Suplecs, Weedeater and several awesome others in the coming weeks, so there’s plenty to come. We’ll have more Six Dumb Questions features too, because those are fun.

Reviews: Let’s see what we’ve got: Mr. Peter Hayden probably tomorrow, followed this week by Ghost (finally), Buck Gooter and Weedeater. Also records from Immolate, Sons of Tonatiuh and Agalloch to get to, and others. I seem to be perpetually behind, but we’ll get there one way or the other. Hey, it’s the internet. Who needs immediacy? Oh wait…

audiObelisk: I’m listening to this month’s podcast as I type this, and it wasn’t just punch-drunk slobbering last night when I posted it, it actually does rule. If you missed last month’s, that’s still available as well.

On the Radar: Has been neglected in the face of all the year-end stuff, but now that that’s over with, we’ll pick up right where we left off. This is one of my favorite features on this site and there’s no way I’d let it go for too long without one.

Thanks to you all as always for reading and commenting on the blog, and for signing up for the forum and posting there. I’m blown away by the success of the forums and of The Obelisk in general, and I hope that as we enter 2011 it will prove useful to you in one way or another.

All the best,
JJ Koczan
Holding Pattern Taskmaster

Tags: self-aggrandizing, The Numbers

This entry was posted on Monday, January 3rd, 2011 at 2:30 pm and is filed under The Numbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.