This morning I gave a once-per-year lecture session on ‘Creating a Website’ as part of the ongoing Marine Science Communications module ‘Our Ocean Planet’. In this session I talk about how easy it is to produce a website these days using platforms such as WordPress and I use a few of the websites that I have produced over the years as examples. Amongst those example websites was, of course, this one.
I have written before about how I don’t write the entries on this blog for anyone in particular. I know that there is almost no audience looking at this blog on a regular basis. I am simply using writing these blog posts as a way to maintain a discipline of writing something everyday. Of course, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d like to think there could be an audience, at least for the occasional post that I write that actually says something interesting or useful (if these even exist), but that is different from writing in the expectation that anyone out there is at all interested in what I have to say.
Today though, suddenly, this site has attracted a few readers, as evidenced by the spike in visits and views shown below:
These numbers are still small, but against the background of the visits and views for a ‘normal’ day the spike in activity is huge. It is also, of course, artificial. These visits and views have only occurred because I was using this site as an example in my lecture this morning. They simply show that there were a few students in the audience who were either interested enough, inquisitive enough or perhaps just plain nosey enough to visit and dig a little deeper. They very probably took a quick look and left rapidly never to be seen again which is, of course, absolutely fine because that just returns me back to normality. But who knows, it’s possible one or two might come back again in the future in some random moment when they are at a loss for something to do and wonder what I might be writing about, whether anyone is still sat in a chair, whether beetroot is still on the menu or whether I have finally managed to come to enjoy marking.
It has been nice to see Spike today, but he’s only passing through and will be gone tomorrow.
Tim O'Hare 