Branded Newb-iversary!

Hi! Welcome to the State of the Blog Address.

Today is a special day at Branded Newb. It's the one year anniversary of the first post! How about that?! Woot!

Honestly, I never knew it would get this far. This blog started out as a way to catalog my experience as a brand manager for Acclaim. As the year went on, the game I managed launched, I personally moved on and became an online marketing consultant and throughout, the blog lived on. I'm not sure what this blog has done for you (hopefully entertain and educate), but for me, it has given so much. I've made new friends through it, I've learned a lot about writing (and as a result, myself), and I totally scored a free PSP game. Not bad at all.

The tags show that we've stayed mostly on topic with games and online marketing as the main foci (folksonomy to your right). I'm tempted to link to my favorite posts over the year but I'll refrain. This is a time to look forward, not back. Well ok, let's look back just a little. Some non-linked highlights from the year include:

• Launching a game. It was amazing to experience the industry from the inside but even more so with a blog that allowed me to have a space to engage with the players.
  
• Being quoted in the NY Times. Probably the highlight of my writing career, even if it is just a silly line out of a random post, it felt nice to see my writing in a publication I love.
• Creating enemies of Second Life fanbois. Perhaps not the first but one of the first to call bullshit on SL, I felt good as everyone else came to realize the sham of SL for PR and marketing.
• Stirring up trouble. Online marketers are a vain bunch and many have found my blog after I've trashed (or praised) their campaigns. It's a great feeling to not only be able to voice your opinion on something but to have a dialogue with the actual concerned parties.
• Actual readers. I suppose this is synonymous with thanking the fans but that would be presumptuous of me to assume I have any fans. I just enjoy being read, some of you daily, some of you random off of Google searches. Either way, it's nice to see that my thoughts interest you enough to go to the next word, then line and maybe an entire post. Thanks for that.
  

Stats time! You are reading post #487 which averages out to more than a post per day; securing my ability to still call this a daily blog. We're closing in on 35,000 total visits for the year, almost 100 a day. By far, the most popular way to get here has been through Google searching Acclaim related keywords (which makes sense, given how the blog started). The most popular exit is immediately (hey, I can handle it). The most popular post was one where I photoshopped a PS3 to show it making toast, so much for writing skills (I linked it in some Digg article, it was my experiment with traffic generation).

Finally, the future. I'd like to continue this blog for another year. I'm pleased with where it's at in terms of content and topic. These are things that I'm truly passionate about and can write about for at least another year. The balance may tip away from games a little (given that I'm no longer a games brand manager) but I can't hide the fact that I'm a gamer for too long.

As far as goals go...

• I think I'll try to revise the blog to be just slightly more user friendly. I don't think I'll leave Blogger though, as I find I like the support and ease of use. We'll see what third party tools I can add to make things more interesting.
• I'll try to get more readers. Sure, a part of this is vanity but I think it'll increase the value for everyone else if the blog increases the number of dedicated and extroverted readers. I just think some more discourse would add a nice element to the blog. Mainly, I blame myself as I'm sure my posts aren't exactly begging for conversation. Also, I blame the topics. My hunch is that BN is probably too casual for serious business types and too business for casual gamer types.
• I'll use fewer parentheses. I know, they can get out of control.

Yeah, nice and safe goals. I'll see you next year and we'll compare notes.

So finally, thanks for being a reader! I would never have gotten to a year without you guys.

Ken