Here we are on Day 30 of Blaugust and I am already rushing to the exit, ready to review the whole thing.
Now seems like an appropriate time to flash the even logo
I’m not really in a rush (and somebody else has been down this path already), but I had a post slated for yesterday, I have the traditional month in review post already queued up for tomorrow, and something already queued up for Tuesday, but nothing really planned for today. So I figured it would fit nicely here. Not that I need another post. I hit the 31 post mark nearly a week ago, but I guess we actually have to do one EVERY day. Can’t just stop at 31.
What I Did Do
I posted at least once a day, every day, for the whole month. Last year I wrote 39 posts for Blaugust, this year I will manage 42. So three better, for specific definitions of “better.”
I linked up my post over in the Blaugust section at Anook.com, both as a blog post and as a forum post. At about Day 22 I had finally refined my method so I could link my blog, embed a picture, assign a related game, and have it all publish correctly on the first try.
By the way, the craziest thing on Anook has to be this:
The bar has been set very, very low…
Bhagpuss could easily topple me from that #1 spot if he joined and linked up his posts.
I visited other bloggers, left comments much further afield than I usually do, added a couple blogs to the blog roll and even more to the blog feed in the side bar, and became Blaugust buddies with Ysharros. I think that should be a Blaugust feature going forward, a random pairing of participants or some such. Maybe?
What I Did Not Do
I did not write much in the way of special Blaugust posts. I didn’t use any of the writing prompts and I was even able to dodge the AMA thread in the Blaugust forum when I pointed out I already wrote a post on the requested topic for the NBI 2015 event, so there wasn’t much left to say.
Basically, I don’t seem to have much problem coming up with a topic to write about on a daily basis. I didn’t even use any of my emergency backup topics. That is, in part, one of the joys of having a somewhat generalist gaming blog. If I were single game focused things might be different. Also, it was a pretty big news month for August. There was a lot to write about, plus a week long war in EVE Online, which always helps. I think I have more half finished posts in my drafts folder at the end of Blaugust than I did at the beginning.
I did not inject the word “Blaugust” into post titles, use it as a hash tag, link to the rules page, or any of that except when posting explicitly about the event. That was partly me just being finicky about style and partly a matter of being “in” the event but not “of” the event, to get a little philosophical. My blog was here before Blaugust, it will be after Blaugust, so it doesn’t need to be tied directly to Blaugust even during Blaugust.
Also, I managed to use the word Blaugust four times in a single sentence there
And, to be honest, going into Feedly during the event and seeing post title after post title starting with the word Blaugust looked kind of icky, to use the technical term, and a bit confusing. I didn’t want any part of that. Such is life.
I also didn’t see much in the way of traffic from the event.
Not that this month wasn’t a banner month for traffic, so there appears, on the surface, to be some correlation between that and Blaugust.
But digging into the traffic sources that brought people to the blog over the last 30 days, Anook is way down in 14th place. Search engines were the top source, with Anook bringing in just 0.6% of the traffic Google sent here. And individual blogs of participants in Blaugust fell further down the list than Anook, with In An Age being the top there.
The top 20 sources of referral traffic for August, for those who are curious.
Google
lowseclifestyle.com
evebloggers.com
totaleve.com
greedygoblin.blogspot.com
bhagpuss.blogspot.com
blessingofkings.blogspot.com
syncaine.com
Twitter
keenandgraev.com
feedly.com
Reddit
theoldreader.com
anook.com
Facebook
inanage.com
WordPress.com Reader
popehat.com
weritsblog.com
mmoquests.com
Search engine traffic was up significantly this month, and it was largely directing people to posts about World of Warcraft. The first week of August saw two big WoW announcements, first the subscription number drop and then the big WoW Legion reveal. That also got people talking and linking back and forth and what not.
Basically, if you want more traffic, write about WoW drama.
Though, in a surprise move, my post about Lord of the Rings Online server merges i topping the chart here for August. That was mostly by virtue of few people posting about it, so my post made it to the first page of the results on Google. Go me.
Also, Gevlon linked here more than anybody else this month. What does that say about August? And me?
But the traffic thing is really beside the point. I didn’t come here to make friends.
Wait, no! I totally came here to make friends.
This was a community event and a chance to mingle a little more closely with my fellow gaming bloggers and all that. So much better with people and all that. So I am going to declare op success on that front, though now I am confused as to how this all fits under the heading of things I didn’t do. Well, not making a lick of sense never stopped me from clicking the publish button before, so why stop now? Maybe I should inject a new heading.
Summary
Never too late for that.
All in all it was a good event. As noted above, I found some new blogs to follow. It got some people back to blogging, including Brian “Psychochild” Green who somehow found the time write a significant post every day while on the very busy Camelot Unchained team.
A great big thanks to Belghast for setting it up and a shout out to all of the blogs that joined in. I think I have the list below. We had even more people to part than last year. There some prizes to hand out, an accounting of who made it the whole way, and some further summaries to write, but things should be mostly arriving at the finish line.
Blaugust 2015 blogs:
A Green Mushroom
Adamantly Complacent
Ald Shot First
Alexandria Mack
Aywren Sojourner
Battle Priestess
Beyond Tannhauser Gate
Bio Break
Blue Kae
Cannot Be Tamed
Comics and Cookies
Contains Moderate Peril
Diary of a Mom Gamer
Endgame Viable
Floor Tank Gaming
Game Introspection
Gaming Identity
Hello Kitsune
Herding Cats
I Have Touched the Sky
In An Age
Intermittent Daily Posts from Howard
Jamie’s Blog – Daily Vlogs
JVT Workshop
Kateri Morton
Knifesedge
Lair of the Wolf Dragon
Leaflocker
LFGryph
Light Falls Gracefully
Me Vs Myself and I
Memoirs of a Lady
MMO Gypsy
Moonshine Mansion
Murf Versus
My Life in Azeroth
Nerdy Bookahs
No Market Collective
Nomadic Gamers
Pizza Maid
Pleasant Gamer
Psyche Plays
Psychochild’s Blog
Pumping Irony
Sagacyte’s Digital Adventures
She Rides Dragons
Soulbound Life
Star-Fired Beef
Stars of the Spiral
Static Refresh
Stropp’s World
Stylish Corpse
Thalen Speaks
The Driveling Dwarf
The Friendly Necromancer
The Mystical Mesmer
The Tankquisition
Through Wofly’s Eyes
Tyrannodorkus
Why I Game