The blog - standing

On 1 January 2011 I wrote the article A new year is awaiting..., in which I among others gave details about the number of page views and the ten most popular blog articles. We are already a few days into the year 2012, but I thought I should write a similar report to compare how the blog has developed.

As of today, 8 January 2012, the blog has had 95.537 page views, starting in August 2009. In January 2011 the number had passed 30,000, so it is obviously I have got more readers, even though the number of articles has decreased (from 175 to 104). Most readers come from the United States (31.165 page views), followed by Norway (7.373 ) and Canada (7.052).

Top ten counting from August 2009 to January 2012:

1. 25.07.2010: Countess Ruth of Rosenborg has died (946 page views)
2. 16.11.2010: UK: Prince William of Wales and Kate Middleton engaged to marry (935)
3. 30.11.2011: 'King' Leka of the Albanias has died (874)
4. 23.01.2010: Cimetière de Passy, Paris, France (778)
5. 26.10.2011: Princess Tatiana of Greece is pregnant (742)
6. 07.06.2011: 75 years since the death of Queen Sonja's brother (689)
7. 21.02.2011: UK: No official guest list for the royal wedding to be released (539)
8. 30.12.2010: UK: Peter and Autumn Phillips parents to a baby girl (507)
9. 19.09.2011: Last resting place of Erica Bernadotte, née Patzek (1911-2007) (Wilmersdorf Cemetery, Berlin, Germany, Part I) (496)
10. 23.10.2011: England weekend, October 2011 (493)

Surprisingly enough the rather superficial article about the death of Countess Ruth of Rosenborg is still the most read article in terms of number of page views. Prince William of Wales and Kate Middleton's engagement is still in second place. The others have been replaced, though. How should one sum up the articles? Births, weddings and deaths are popular topics to read about?! All of them except for the last touches on genealogy, which shouldn't be a big surprise, as that is one of my favourite subjects.

I am pleased that the article about Queen Sonja's brother Karl Herman Haraldsen (1929-1936), which took some time to work on, reached top ten. The most funny or interesting article to work on in 2011? Hard to say, but maybe the articles The Citadel Park cemeteries, Poznan, Poland, Part I and The Norwegian Royal Family and Court in the 1909 and 1910 censuses (23 February 2011).

2011 was a rather hectic year, which explains why the number of articles compared with 2010 dropped. I am not too happy with that, but I said last year that I would be happy with 1 or 2 articles a week, and that is exactly what I achieved. Still, I have some times been a bit frustrated with the missed opportunites - events have taken place which I would have liked to write about, but had no time when they occurred. As expected there were more "timeless" blog articles than "news articles" in 2011.

What can the readers expect from my blog in 2012? Well, royal births in the Danish, Swedish and Greek royal families will surely be commented on. I will pay some attention to the US elections this year. During my paternity leave last spring I visited a bunch of cemeteries here in Oslo (my daughter needed a nap anyway, so why not take the pram to the cemeteries?!), but have not made blog articles out of these visits yet. And I have travelled a lot the last few years, so you could expect articles on everything from Texas to Montenegro. I just have to get the time to do them!

Updated on Sunday 8 January 2012 at 23.30 (one sentence corrected), last time Monday 9 January 2012 at 08:30 (another sentence modified).