That Kind Of September
This post is rambling a bit, my apologies.
So I was just checking Google Analytics and Rickey.org had 2,562,369 Absolute Unique Visitors for September. The big boost came from the Scarlett Johansson leaked pictures post, sprinkled with a couple of other "skin" related posts like Mila Kunis Hacked Pictures and Nancy Grace Wardrobe Malfunction. I'll post a list of the most popular posts at the end of year -- it's going to be interesting. Our regular readers for Dancing with the Stars and The X Factor also helped in keeping the visitor count high for a couple of weeks -- which is great since I really love the regulars. Rickey Regulars Rock!
We've already been getting a record number of visitors every month this year, so this month was a great highlight. The most number of visitors we got ever for any American Idol season was 841,156 just last March -- but that was even beaten by the visitors in June and August this year. Obviously, we're not just an American Idol blog anymore (and Howard likes to remind me that it's been like that for years). So let it be officially known once and for all that Rickey.org is an Entertainment and Pop Culture blog. I also happen to like a lot of Reality TV.
I'm glad that we've made the transition and thriving, specially after rabid fans from both American Idol Season 7 and Season 8 tried to shut me down a couple of years ago. They failed obviously, but it has taken me a long time to get over all the hate directed towards me. I'm only human -- you can get traumatized by hate-Tweets coming from a gang of middle-aged sex-crazed women and their younger heirs.
Though I remain an Idol fan -- my decision to pull back on some of the stuff I did like excessively following the American Idol Summer Tour and getting involved knee-deep in fan interactions was a wise one. I was able to reach out to a bigger audience and not be constrained by one "on topic" topic. Though I've always been able to -- I finally feel free to do what I always wanted to do when I first started blogging -- which is talk about everything that interests me -- without fear that people will stop reading.
I looked at the archives, and in 2006, we logged our 2 millionth visitor after 2 years of blogging. And now we got that in just a month. According to SiteMeter the blog has logged 42,642,384 visitors since April 1, 2004. We've come a long way baby!
Thanks to Noelle Gruber and Gabriel Etienne for helping out with the posts this year. Noelle helped us dominate the ABC Family niche of TV recaps and keeps us updated on Glee. Did you read her interview with Mark Salling yet? She also helped make the True Blood posts even more popular than most of the American Idol posts this year. Can you believe that? Rickey.org is a True Blood blog now! We can do anything.
Also to those American Idol fans hating on The X Factor: The most popular performance video on the blog this year is Chris Rene's Young Homie. He's gotten more views than any American Idol performance this season. Don't believe the hate -- The X Factor is a hit.
Finally, because of the boost this September, Quantcast now ranks Rickey.org as the Top 1943 US Web site. That so awesome. I can't even. I was thinking it would go down, but it's just been climbing steadily. The rank will go down maybe in the middle of October, but for now we celebrate!
This is a great time for the blog and you guys have been absolutely amazing. Thank you.
