The figures that prove how brilliant this blog is

I understand it’s become the custom on some blogs to note how many readers visit. As if size matters. It all seems terribly un-English to me. But if you can’t beat ‘em…

Here, then - in the spirit of full disclosure - are my user stats. The left (y) axis is the number of unique users, the bottom (x) axis is the year:

As you can see, I started from a low base, as I hadn’t in fact dipped my toes in the blog-water in 2004.

In the circumstances, therefore, I’m perfectly content that attracting zero visitors was as good as I could realistically have hoped for.

(It’s always good to have a stretch figure, but it should be seen as just that.)

The next year, 2005, is harder to explain. Apparently, half a unique visitor viewed this site. (My StatCounter does, naturally, have a 'blocking cookie' to avoid totting up my own visits here. Otherwise this graph would be well into seven figures.)

I suspect either someone very short, or very young, must have visited very quickly.

Of course, the past month has seen this blog attract a decent amount of media exposure, which has perhaps skewed my 2006 figures to a record-breaking three unique users. Two of these are my parents, who didn't know about it before (which was the way it was meant to be).

But that I now have one regular unique user per year outside of my family suggests to me that this blog is on the up. Indeed, it’s probably fair to say that its reach now exceeds its grasp. At this rate of exponential growth, I will overtake Iain Dale within 10 years.

Blogging really is the future.