2012 haba na haba blogging in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for haba na haba. Mostly, it reminded me how much I didn’t blog this year compared to last year. Interestingly, half as many blog posts in 2012 yielded twice as many visitors. Should my 2012 resolution be to blog half as often? Already I feel like I’ve missed out on writing about some important events (i.e., the Ghanaian election, Gettleman’s winning the Pulitzer for “his vivid reports, often at personal peril, on famine and conflict in East Africa”, etc.). But, I’ve had another, much cuter, responsibility to take care of since October.

Here is a run-down of the 2012 stats for haba na haba:

• In 2012, there were 70 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 305 posts.
  
• The busiest day of the year was April 5th with 894 views. The most popular post that day was Presidential Incapacity/Death in Malawi Means VP Takes Power – Constitution.
• These are the posts that got the most views in 2012:
  1. an herbal cure for HIV? (49 COMMENTS; February 2012)
  2. Presidential Incapacity/Death in Malawi Means VP Takes Power – Constitution (9 COMMENTS; April 2012)
  3. global health corps seeking new fellows (1 COMMENT; January 2012)
  4. UPDATED: Update on situation in Malawi: Joyce Banda is President (7 COMMENTS; April 2012)
  5. spring semester study tips: how to take notes (4 COMMENTS; January 2012)
• The top referring sites in 2012 were:
  1. twitter.com
  2. facebook.com
  3. marcfbellemare.com
  4. Google Reader
  5. sahelblog.wordpress.com
• haba na haba blog readers came from 158 different countries. The most were from the US, with the UK and Malawi rounding out the top three countries.

What’s not captured in the stats compiled by WordPress.com is how much the blog has helped my academic career this past year. For example, all of the blogging I did in the wake of Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika’s death led to a paper with Boniface Dulani in African Affairs.

Blogging isn’t all roses, however. The most-read and most-commented post is one I’ll have to discuss another time. Suffice it to say I am happy it has brought a lot of traffic to the blog, but I’m worried it’s not for the right reasons.

I wish a happy 2013 to all of haba na haba‘s faithful readers. Here’s to what I hope to be another year of productive blogging!