> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.philsimon.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Celebrating Post Number 1,000 - URL: https://www.philsimon.com/celebrating-post-number-1000/ - Published: 2015-06-29T12:24:48.000Z - Updated: 2025-12-30T10:39:34.000Z - Description: Reflecting on a milestone of sorts. - Author: Phil Simon - Tags: Dataviz, Faves, Miscellany, Amazon, Breaking Bad, Marillion, Microsoft, Rush, Too Big to Ignore, Why New Systems Fail, WordPress, Writing When was this site born? Let's say 1/1/2009, but with a disclaimer. I had launched and maintained [previous versions of this site](https://www.philsimon.com/about-phil/site-history/) dating back to 2002, but I really didn't blog back then. Most of my writing consisted of quasi-technical user manuals for my consulting clients and internal e-mails. (Oh, the e-mails.) I did write a few articles for newsletters, but they always lived on other sites. When I decided to try my hand at writing on a full-time basis, though, I knew that I'd have to generate a great deal of content—on this site as well as others. (Authors have to build their platforms.) To that end, over the last six and a half years, I've written on my site very often. In fact, as I crunched the numbers, I realized that I have posted something twice every five days. (I've averaged 12.61 posts per month.) I still contend, though, that [you shouldn't blog every day](https://www.philsimon.com/why-i-dont-blog-every-day/). Writing about writing is very meta, but I'll try to keep myself in check here. ## Subjects Here's a breakdown of my posts by category: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/b5/8fb5e321-49a6-4cf5-8a28-c6f6d5417e54/content/images/2025/05/datahero-totals-1.png) Note that many of my posts fall into more than one category; WordPress makes that easy to do. Looking at three of my most popular categories over time, it's interesting to see how they've evolved. In short, I tend to blog more about a topic when I'm in the midst of penning a proper [book](https://www.philsimon.com/books). Beyond that, many of my favorite subjects are relatively nascent. For instance, I didn't blog much about Big Data back in 2010\. Was I late to the game with [*Too Big to Ignore*](https://tinyurl.com/5philtbti?ref=philsimon.com)? Nope. Google Trends shows that almost nobody did. ![DataHero Posts Over Time](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/b5/8fb5e321-49a6-4cf5-8a28-c6f6d5417e54/content/images/2025/05/datahero-posts-over-time-1.png) If I included every category in the line chart above, it would quickly become unreadable. Yeah, I learned a little something over the years about [data visualization](https://tinyurl.com/6philtvo?ref=philsimon.com). ## When I Blog Some months I blog more than others. Here's the breakdown by month: ![posts_by_month](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/b5/8fb5e321-49a6-4cf5-8a28-c6f6d5417e54/content/images/2025/05/posts_by_month-1.png) Again, this isn't surprising. Many of my books have been published in late winter/early spring. Conversely, the Interwebs tend to shut down a bit around the holidays. As such, I don't blog as much when I can expect less traffic. (You could argue, though, that that's precisely the right time to get a post out.) ## The Phillies Macro-level trends are great, but what about recognizing some individual posts? Yeah, it's award time, baby. (The Phillies?) ![](https://i.imgur.com/nWT84V5.jpg) ### Posts with the Most Comments - [What Should I Ask Neil Peart?](https://www.philsimon.com/what-should-i-ask-neil-peart/) (56) - [What Should I Ask Steve Hogarth?](https://www.philsimon.com/what-should-i-ask-steve-hogarth/) (39) - [Why Microsoft Access 2007 Sucks](https://www.philsimon.com/why-microsoft-access-2007-sucks/) (23) This isn't totally surprising. The Rush and Marillion communities are incredibly passionate ones. I got plenty of love from rabid fans and even some fan websites when collecting questions to interview real-life rock stars: ### Post with the Most Page Views My most popular post (via page views) is [my interview with Neil Peart](https://www.philsimon.com/neil-peart-interview/), one that I also posted on [HuffPo](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-simon/far-and-near-an-interview%5Fb%5F5959520.html?ref=philsimon.com). It's not even close. I had to pay extra for hosting that month, but [WPEngine](https://www.wpengine.com/?ref=philsimon.com) rocks. ### Biggest Gap Between Posts 24 days, [July of 2009](https://www.philsimon.com/2009/07/). ![breaking_bad](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/b5/8fb5e321-49a6-4cf5-8a28-c6f6d5417e54/content/images/2025/05/breaking_bad-8.jpg) I was probably binge-watching *Breaking Bad* that month, [a frequent subject on this site](https://www.philsimon.com/tag/breaking-bad/). I remember that I was in New York that month visiting friends. I also wasn't convinced that blogging was worth my time. It wasn't easy to attract attention back then, and it's much harder today. My viewpoint changed when [Slashdot reviewed *Why New Systems Fail*](https://books.slashdot.org/story/09/07/15/1255258/Why-New-Systems-Fail?from=rss&ref=philsimon.com) and the book broke the top-100 on Amazon. I haven't looked back. ### My Favorite Post > Here's to the next 1,000 posts. I'm not arrogant enough to think that all of my posts are gold, but I have tagged [a bunch that I really like](https://www.philsimon.com/blog/favorites/the-sponge-theory-of-writing/). As I writer, I've improved quite a bit in the last six-plus years, but some posts are clearly better than others. If pressed, though, I really like my post on the [Sponge Theory of Writing](https://www.philsimon.com/blog/favorites/the-sponge-theory-of-writing/). It's not terribly long, but I find myself thinking about it quite a bit and talking about the subject with other writers. ## Simon Says Thanks for reading. Here's to the next 1,000 posts.