More candle than cake

If you work for the NSA you probably already know this but yesterday I got an e-mail from Godaddy that said my registration for the domain VideoContestNews.com had just auto-renewed for another year.  I’m tempted to say “it’s hard to believe that it’s been four years since I started VCN” but you know what?  I totally believe that it’s been four years.  It feels like I’ve been running this site for half my life.  (It’s only been 1/3rd of my life.  I’m actually 12.)  I probably spend about 5 hours a week working on VCN so that would mean I’ve sunk about 1,000 hours into this blog.  I just checked and according to my WordPress dashboard, I’ve published 460 blog posts since I launched Video Contest News in September, 2009.  That’s sort of an absurd amount.  Some of my posts can be really, freaking long.  Man….instead of blogging, I could have spent the last four years writing a book about video contests that no one would ever want to publish or read.

But Fortunately (and still to my surprise) people do like to visit and read VCN.  I used to see a relatively huge spike in traffic every year during the Crash the Super Bowl contest.  But for the last two years, VCN’s “off season” numbers have been climbing steadily.  June, July and August are usually pretty slow (all web traffic dips in the summer) but this year we managed to pull in at least 6,000 unique visits a month.  But like I said, things get really crazy in the fall and early winter thanks to our Crash the Super Bowl coverage.  Back in January, VCN had its busiest month ever; more than 33,000 people visited the site after the Crash the Super Bowl finalists were announced.

If you’re a new reader or a long-time fan, I’d like to thank you for visiting VCN and reading my dork-tastic ramblings.  I’d also like to give a special shout out to Video Contest News’ two primary sponsors; Tongal and Mofilm.  Their support is what helps keep this site up and running.  To demonstrate my gratitude, I will eat a cupcake in honor of both companies tonight.  Ah, what the hell…I will eat a cupcake in honor of all of you tonight.  You deserve a little recognition for a change and I deserve to eat thousands and thousands of cupcakes!

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