Most-Read GeekFluent Posts in 2019

What a year 2019 was. But now it’s past and good riddance.

Not all of 2019 was bad, but — for me at least — it was a hard year as can be evidenced by the frighteningly low number of new posts I made during the year. Everything is starting into an upswing now, so this post is part of just putting the year behind me and moving on into 2020.

So, with that in mind, I give you a list of my ten most-read posts during 2019. Continue reading

Most-Read GeekFluent Posts in 2017

Hello, and welcome to 2018.

It’s a new year which means it’s time for a new check-in on how content on this site did during the previous year. Let’s start with the ten most-read posts in 2017. (All statistics used in this post are gathered from the WordPress app.)

Most-Read Posts in 2017:

  1. What’s New in VMware vSphere 6.5 (2016) – 6,958 views
  2. Use Your Windows Laptop as an Isilon Console Terminal (2013) – 1,973 views
  3. What’s New in Isilon OneFS 8.0 (2016) – 1,963 views
  4. Magic Balloon: A Whiteboarding Creativity Game/Exercise (2013) – 1,728 views
  5. Cisco Enters Hyperconverged Market with HyperFlex (2016) – 1,344 views
  6. Job Search Mode: Engaged! (2017) – 1,168 views
  7. Summary of Monday’s Announcements at Dell EMC World 2017 (2017) – 917 views
  8. Pure Storage Announces NVMe DirectFlash and New FlashArray Model (2017) – 881 views
  9. Pure Storage FlashBlade is Now GA (2017) – 838 views
  10. EMC Announces Next-Generation VMAX Storage Array (2014) – 813 views

The first thing I noticed was that only four of the ten most-read posts in 2017 were actually written in 2017. The second thing I noticed was the huge gap between the #1 and #2 spots. The most-viewed post, on vSphere 6.5, actually received 19% of the total views the entire site got during 2017.

Most-Read Posts Written in 2017

I know this list is less “fair” to the more recent posts, but that’s just the way things go.

  1. Job Search Mode: Engaged! – 1,168 views
  2. Summary of Monday’s Announcements at Dell EMC World 2017 – 917 views
  3. Pure Storage Announces NVMe DirectFlash and New FlashArray Model – 881 views
  4. Pure Storage FlashBlade is Now GA – 838 views
  5. Job Search Successful – I’m Headed to the Cloud – 562 views
  6. Things Marketers Need to Just STOP Doing – 354 views
  7. Cisco Announces Champions for 2017 – 338 views
  8. Premise vs. Premises: A Modest Proposal – 307 views
  9. HPE Acquiring SimpliVity for a Bargain Basement Price – 229 views
  10. An Open Letter to Influence Marketers – 222 views

I’ll admit I’m happy that “Job Search” post got top readership. It and the various social media work around it were instrumental in helping me find my current job.

I do wish my “Modest Proposal” had gotten more reads — and that the proposal itself had a far higher adoption rate.

I’m a little sad that the “Open Letter” made it into the top ten. I think the Addendum I wrote to it is actually a far better piece.

The Power of Search

60.7% of all pageviews on this site in 2017, came from search engines. Most folks aren’t necessarily looking for me, but they’re looking for me info on things I’m writing about. They’re doing what I do — running a search and then reading what they’re referred to. Makes me think I might want to look into some SEO at some point.

Conclusions?

I seem to be branching out with what I write — both top ten lists this year cover a wider variety of vendors and topics than the lists have in past years.

I wrote more about myself recently. Two of the top posts I wrote this year were about what I was up to.

I pretty much always feel that I’m not creating new content or posting as often as I “should” be. I’m not sure if that will actually ever change, but a good first step might be convincing myself that short posts really are OK.

Voting for Top vBlog 2017 is Open — Closes 30 June

It’s that time of year again when you’re seeing lots of “Vote for Me!” blog posts and tweets. This is not one of those posts.

Yes, once again, Eric Seibert is running voting for the Top vBlog of 2017 on his really great blog vSphere-Land(If it’s not already in whatever you’ve moved to since Google Reader went away, take a moment to add it now. I’ll wait.) Again this year, Turbonomic is helping to sponsor the voting.

So, no, I’m not going to ask you to rush over there and vote for me. I am, however going to ask you to go there sometime before voting closes on 30 June 2017 and vote for the blogs (you can choose 12 of them) that you find to be:

  • The most helpful
  • The most informative
  • The best

In the Big Scheme of ThingsTM, does being voted on of the Top vBlogs of 2017 really matter? No. No, it doesn’t.

However, I know that your favorite bloggers will definitely appreciate seeing their blog rise up a little higher in the rankings. I know that a lot of folks out there put a lot of time and effort into their postings — almost all of it during their “free” time — and almost all of them aren’t making any money off of their blogs. (Full Disclosure: From sponsorship, this blog earned slightly more than enough money to cover my hosting fees in 2016, netting approximately $16 USD for the entire year.

So thank them by taking the time to vote for the folks you read and are informed by, whoever they are — I know they’ll appreciate it. (Don’t get me wrong — if you’re having trouble thinking of who to give your 12th vote to, I’ll happily take it, but it won’t bother me in the least if you don’t vote for me at all, as long as you took the time to vote for folks you believe deserve the recognition.)

You can read up on the voting and cast your vote here.

State of the Blog Report: 2016

New Year’s Day. Today we find ourselves breathing a sigh of relief that we actually made it through the year that was 2016. It’s also a time to look forward with a mixture of hope and dread at the year that will be 2017.

This post focuses on looking back at how GeekFluent did during 2016.

With a total of 36,720 views, 2016 was the blog’s second-biggest year, coming in at 99.5% of 2014’s total of 36,900 views. A more detailed look follows below. Continue reading

Voting for Top vBlogs of 2016 is Open!

vote-button1vSphere-land is running the annual voting for the Top Virtualization Blogs (vBlogs) of 2016. There are so many good blogs out there Eric (who runs vSphere-Land) has made two changes to the voting this year:

  1. To qualify, a blog needs to have had at least 10 posts published in 2015.
  2. You can now vote for your 12 favorite blogs (up from 10 last year).

There are a lot of great blogs out there, many of them written by folks who are doing the work on their own time. If you’ve benefitted from reading them, help thank your favorite authors by taking a few minutes to vote for them.

And while I’d love your vote (I’m also in the categories Best Storage Blog and Best Independent Blog (just saying…)), it’s more important that you vote for the folks you’ve benefitted from.

Keep it classy, though. Every year Eric does a lot of work to stop folks from trying to work the system to get more votes for themselves. Don’t make his job harder on him.

Take a few minutes and vote for your favorites here.

For Vendors: Handling Negative Social Media Feedback — Three Case Studies and Some Tips

Thumbs DownIf you’re a right-thinking individual, you’ll find it hard to believe that sometimes not everyone agrees with everything I write. In fact, sometimes people have taken exception to things I write. On the rare event when it has happened, it’s usually the vendors I write about who disagree with me.

In this post, I’ll present the stories of three different times this has happened to me in the past year or so. I’ll cover what happened, what the vendor didn’t appreciate about what I said, how they decided to handle that, and the end results of their actions. Continue reading

Dave’s Blogging Tips: Don’t Wait

Tech Bloggers' Support GroupThis is the first of what I’m hoping to turn into a series of blogging tips posts.

I’m well aware that I haven’t been blogging anywhere’s near as long as some of the other folks out there have been. I’m also well aware that I haven’t achieved the level of blogging success that some folks have.

But, I have been doing this for three years now, and I’ve managed to become a medium-sized deal in my small corner of the broader community, so while I won’t claim to be a leading authority, I also won’t play the false humility card. I will share what things I have learned. Most of it will be advice I wish I had received, but instead ended up learning the hard way.

Experience: the most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
— C. S. Lewis

Knowledge sharing of this type was the main driver behind the creation of the Tech Bloggers’ Support Group.

With all that said, it’s time for me to follow my own first piece of advice: Continue reading

Tech Bloggers’ Support Group – Beta Test

Tech Bloggers' Support GroupThis is an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while. I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to be doing more with this blog: posting more often, creating series of posts, improving my writing skills, increasing my readership, etc.

Obviously, the easiest of these for me to affect is the “posting more often”. I’m often well-intentioned about this, but between work, family, and other obligations, writing for my own blog often takes a back seat. Continue reading

State of the Blog Report: 2015

2015 is over and 2016 has arrived. It’s a time to reflect on what’s gone before and to plan for the year ahead. In doing so, here’s a look back at GeekFluent’s year in 2015.

2015 was the year that the blog received its first-ever official sponsor. Pages views in 2015 (34,495) were down about 7% from 2014 which was the blog’s best year yet (36,900). More details stats below. Continue reading

Top VMware and Virtualization Blog Survey 2015

topvblog20151smallestThe blog vSphere-land is holding its annual contest / voting survey for the top 50 VMware- and virtualization-related blogs of 2015. All blogs listed on the vLaunchPad site are eligible.

This blog was added to the vLaunchPad after the nominations for specific recognition categories, but in time to be included in the general voting. It looks like there are about 400 or so blogs eligible, a lot of them ones I read regularly.

I urge you to take a few minutes of time and go to the voting site and make sure your voice is heard for the best blogs. Vote for the ten folks who you find most helpful and most informative. I won’t object if you include this blog in that list, and I won’t take it personally if you don’t — I just urge you to take advantage of the opportunity to be heard and help make sure the best blogs get the recognition they deserve.