We’ve been talking a lot about hurricane records lately. But that’s not the only kind of record germane to this blog at the moment.
As some of you no doubt noticed, things have been up-and-down here at the Intersection over the past year. Particularly when I had a pressing book deadline, posting frequency went way, way down. And so, understandably, did our traffic.
In May, however, I invited Sheril to join the blog, and boy do I not regret it. Since May our traffic here has almost doubled, reaching a peak of nearly 60,000 pageviews in August as judged by Sitemeter. We’ve never had this much traffic, or this many comments, at least as far back as I can remember. A large part of it has to be attributed to my new co-blogger, and the new tone and range of bloggable topics that she brings to the table.
To be sure, we are not the most highly-read blog on ScienceBlogs (though we’re on the higher traffic end of the distribution). But we are one of the oldest and best known, and I think it’s clear that we’ve recently had a new beginning and a new infusion of life. Not only has Sheril’s blogging been great–she has inspired me to blog more as well. And we’ve been having a lot of fun, too. We compared PZ to God. In fact, we quoted God.
We also sang Bob Dylan, and weren’t afraid to show you the video.
And we have much more planned. For one, as soon as we figure out how to do so technologically, we are going to cease moderating comments. When you post, it will appear instantly. This should further increase the volume of comments to the site, and perhaps also increase site readership. (We do hope that with these new privileges everyone will keep the level of decorum high, and we will still reserve the right to delete malicious or inappropriate comments.)
And there are other surprises to come. In the meantime, though, here’s what we need most from you: A new banner to celebrate our rebirth. We’ve already announced our banner contest, and there are just two weeks til the deadline. We need your art. Details here.
Finally, please feel free to use the comments section to post any remarks on the general direction the Intersection has been heading, and your views on that trajectory. We’re very interested in your feedback. And thanks to you all for reading.