June 2016 Blog Project Postmortem

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Today is July 1. Happy Canada Day, and happy June 2016 blog project postmortem day!

I always wondered how people find blogs that they like, and how the friendship chain of blogging goes. Because I am a huge nerd, I launched an experiment: follow 6 new blogs a day, every day, for June 2016. I started off with six randomly chosen blogs, and saw how far I could go in making connections and new blog friends. I kept a flow chart, or “family tree” of how I found each blog – usually clicking through commenters or the blogger’s blogroll.

I had a few self-imposed rules:

Rule #1: Only follow friends of bloggers who have replied to my comment and/or followed me back.

Rule #2: Only follow blogs that have updated within the past month. 

Rule #3: Only follow blogs that are on topics that I would conceivably enjoy reading about. I have a wide range of interests so it isn’t hard. As long as it wasn’t just photos with no words, long and lugubrious poetry, or something that I found questionable, it was OK by me.

Rule #4: Try to vary between male/female bloggers, geographical locations, interests, age of blogs, and age of bloggers. Some bloggers I followed were just starting out, others had been around for a while. I could follow 180 post-a-day mommy blogs, and nothing against mommy bloggers, but there’s only so much mom talk I can relate to.

Rule #5: Try to follow people who I’d be friends with in real life. I have friends from all walks of life, so this was not hard, but I’ve read a few blogs in the past by people who I just felt were…a little off, in a bad way, and who posted some very questionable things, in different directions.

Here are the results, and the 6 family trees. I started with:

1 – Aishwarya Sivakumar

2 – I Accidently Ate The Whole Thing

3 – Amrita Kinne

4 – Divya Deepak Rao

5 – The Analyzed Life

6 – Big and Pinky Toes

Three of the families ended up having quite a lineage, and the other three kinda flamed out, when I wasn’t getting a response from any of the “family” members, so I focused my efforts elsewhere.

The three smaller families:

Family 4: Divya Deepak Rao

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1st Generation:

I didn’t end up getting any further bites, so I kind of gave up on that one pretty early on.

Family 2: I Accidently Ate The Whole Thing

IMG_6393

1st Generation:

2nd Generation:

Again, not a huge measure of success with this family, although I did try.

Family 6: Big and Pinky Toes

IMG_6394

1st Generation:

2nd Generation:

3rd Generation:

This family kind of ended a little prematurely, but at least the tree looks cute and even.

Next, the three BIG families (which all ended up being the odd numbers):

Family 1: Aishwarya Sivakumar

IMG_6395

1st Generation:

2nd Generation:

3rd Generation:

4th Generation:

5th Generation:

6th Generation:

7th Generation:

This blog family tree somehow ended in a lot of blogs about runners and running.

Now, for the two biggest ones:

Family 3: Amrita Kinne

IMG_6389

1st Generation:

2nd Generation:

3rd Generation:

4th Generation:

5th Generation:

6th Generation:

7th Generation:

8th Generation:

9th Generation:

10th Generation:

11th Generation:

12th Generation:

This family took on a lot of different directions, including two paths that led to a series of African bloggers, oddly enough.

And finally, Family 5: The Analyzed Life AKA the Mega Family

IMG_6387

1st Generation:

2nd Generation:

3rd Generation:

4th Generation:

5th Generation:

6th Generation:

7th Generation:

8th Generation:

9th Generation:

10th Generation:

11th Generation:

12th Generation:

13th Generation:

I enjoyed meandering down this path the most, and ended up finding blogs about travel, cuisine, writing, education, art, and an array of different countries and cities.

If you’re in this post, say hey and find your own place in the family tree.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as my other posts (and as much as I enjoyed this nerdy project), and come back and visit often, and link your friends. Another great effect was the increased traffic: I had my busiest month this year, with around 2500 visits, and am halfway to 1500 subscribers!

Now, for my next blogging experiment…it might have to wait until August or September because I have way too much work to do on my prelims.

129 thoughts on “June 2016 Blog Project Postmortem”

  2. This is seriously such a brilliant idea. I’m HONOURED that my blog brought you to so many other amazing blogs. Thank you so much for sharing this with me. I am super excited to check out the blogs you mentioned.

    Reply

    • You’re so welcome! Thanks for the lovely comment. Hopefully you can share this on your own blog, you are more than welcome to 🙂 ::pushes up nerdy nerd glasses::

      Reply

  3. Wow, what an amazing and awesome concoction of bloggers from everywhere! You’ve done a huge amount of work and I have to take my hat off to you (if I was wearing one!) Cheers to a great July. 🙂

    Reply

  6. Simply amazing. I would never have thought of it. So glad that our blogs could connect! Looking forward to finding more great blogs through your post. Best of luck with your prelims and your next blog project!

    Reply

  8. Hey Jacob that’s fantastic! You sound just like me in doing these nerdy experiments 😀 I thoroughly enjoyed this post. I have met some lovely people through your blog as well and thus experiment was a great way to have more people visit and know about you and vice versa! I’m still kind of ‘new’ to the blogging world and I’m so so glad that my family tree was still bigger than I imagined it could get 🙂
    This post was super fun!!! Thank you so much. Cheers 🙂

    Reply

  10. This is fascinating! I found several of my favorite bloggers in the long list of generations. What I especially like is the illustration of how we are globally connected. I remember this theory called degrees of separation a while back. I like to think it as degrees of connection.

    Reply

  13. That is amazing, not only because of the amount of work to chronicle all that data but also because of all the bloggers I either follow or who I know follow me, there were only a few names I recognized and yet I still made the tree. What an amazing feat. I’m impressed. Thank you!

    Reply

  14. I was excited to read this post more, the moment you commented I was a part of it. After reading it, Wow! This is rather a cool project. Not because you were kind enough to mention me, but because of your level of thinking. Oh! I know all almost everybody in the family I’m put in. 😄😊

    Reply

  16. LOL It was interesting to see that I’m 10th Generation in the Mega Family!!! Thank you for sharing this, very enlightening! 🙂

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  17. I said when you followed me that it was a great way to make connections – so interesting to see I’m a 4th generation and what my ‘family tree’ is. Also, many of my recent followers are names that appear in either my family or the mega fam… Maybe this triggers you to appear in the ‘blogs you might like’ section, does it? Eager to see what the next experiment is!

    Reply

    • Thanks for following and commenting Haylee! That’s how it works, I basically just did a lot of clicking through. If you liked this post, feel free to link to it on your blog or reblog it!

      Reply

      • I actually shared it on Twitter when I read it – that’s where I generally share other bloggers’ posts. Always good to link it in with some of the blog share parties that happen at the weekends 🙂

    • Thanks for the comment Sumit! Hope you stick around. Answer: Way too damn long. I think it was about seven hours from the time I started writing it to when I clicked publish, several saved drafts and work-related, coffee-related, and real-life-related breaks later.

      Reply

  21. Woah ! you have put a lot efforts …
    Just one suggestions/request .. it’s AWESOMENGERS (it is a single word 😁) … otherwise I loved to read the result of this project

    Reply

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  31. How fun! You’re so organized about your approach to finding new bloggers to follow. Happy to be listed among The Analyzed Life. Thanks for including me.

    Reply

  34. Your comment ended up in my Spam folder. Akismet was a little too efficient. Sorry about that.

    This looks like a really interesting way to organize and follow blogs. It must have taken you the better part of June to organize all this. I might try the same. (Already I’m building this database in my head…) Did your travels take you to any Blogger blogs? That’s like a whole different world over there: not quite as networking-friendly, but there are some good blogs over there. And, remember, I might be at 11th generation in this tree, but at 5th or 6th on another blogger’s tree… those would be some fascinating relationships to explore…

    Wonder how long it would take to build a tree of every blog on the Internet…?

    Reply

    • Thanks for visiting, John!

      To answer your questions:
      1. I spent way, way more time on it than I probably should have spent. Had I spent the same amount of time on my prelims, I might be done by now.
      2. I kept it to WordPress. Simpler, and more efficient. Also, I had a blogger blog for a minute a few years ago, but I abandoned it because the interface was just too blocky for me.
      3. Don’t give me any more time-wasting ideas, I just might be tempted enough to try.

      Reply

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  36. Thank you for including my blog in this fascinating experiment! I’m glad you were able to find so many other blogs through my blog 🙂 I really appreciate the hard work you out into this… I can’t wait to check out some of these blogs! Oh, and congratulations on having your busiest month! xo

    Reply

  38. I enjoyed following your clever blogging family tree, Jacob — and also appreciated being part of the family. I, too, find it fascinating how we wordpressers expand across the digital world. Many thanks for this interesting study and post.

    Reply

  43. Life ‘os’ Mon hahhaha. Thank you so much for adding me in there. It kind of shows how we’re all just connected in some ways. I think the same goes for people outside the virtual life 🙂

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  45. Wow, you really have put a lot of thought into this and you’re so systematical! And this may sound silly, buuuut I feel super cool being part of a wordpress-family-tree thing, especially the largest one at that (hehe)! Thanks a lot for the mention and great experiment 😀

    Reply

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