I took part in the shameless parade of self-promotion and virtual chest-thumping that all new bloggers experience until they build a following. I pored over my Sitemeter, Technorati and TTLB stats throughout the day looking for evidence of mentions, trackbacks and hat tips — anything that would stroke my ego and give me the validation I so desperately desired. My site eventually popped up in the blogrolls of a handful of the more influential pundits. Later, my commentary was occasionally quoted on a few sites that I admired, even if it was too seldom for my taste at the time. By using the right search terms, I can still find old discussion links to my blog on Memeorandum, BlogNetNews and other sites of note.

My popularity peaked in late 2006 and started to wane until I slowly succumbed to blogger fatigue. My real job and real life kept me busy with real obligations, and I had pretty much stopped weekday blogging by 2009. At some point, I realized that nothing I was writing was really advancing the conversation. Everybody had a website. Everybody had an opinion. Maybe it was always like that, but I hadn’t noticed until then. I apologized to whatever readers I had left and walked away from the site. Much of the nostalgia had simply worn off. I eventually deleted my entire blog archive lest my juvenile outbursts come back to haunt me later in life. Eventually, my old posts will be beyond even the reach of the Wayback Machine.

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

When I started this blog, I decided I would do it purely as a personal hobby and resource. I laid it all out in the About Me page. It’s been working pretty well so far. I still rattle off the occasional rant, but I try to keep those kinds of posts to a minimum and limited to issues that are amusing. Some thoughts simply take more than 140 characters to express.

Every now and then, I still play around in Sitemeter and Google Analytics/Webmatser Tools. The difference between then and now is that I do it out of curiosity rather than compulsion. Mostly I just try to hone my SEO skills and look for new patterns in Google’s search results/algorithm (I work in marketing after all). Every now and then, I run across some interesting stuff. The first data I still look at are referral sites and search terms. It’s amazing what combinations of words randomly bring people to my website. This recent example cracked me up:

Someone typed “wife in labor what do i do?” into Google and ended up on this post of mine. I’m hoping the poor guy was doing research instead of reacting to an actual emergency. He bounced pretty quickly when he realized pictures of my homemade magazine organizer wouldn’t help bring his child into this world any faster.

If the guy was in fact looking for quick info, then why didn’t he just call 911? I’m telling you, humanity’s collective IQ is dropping daily. I expect every previous generation has said that about the next, but now we have the web archive to prove it.

If you can’t remember the name of that song that’s bopping around in your head, just type some lyrics into Google and find the answer in seconds. Are you bored with your uninspired dinner rotation? Type your favorite ingredients into AllRecipes.com and find a list of new variations of your old standbys, complete with ratings and cooks’ comments. Do you want to get a feel for the quality and longevity of a product before purchasing it? Go to Amazon and read the buyer reviews; the truth will out. My wife even walked away from buying a Volkswagen because of disappointing consumer reports she read online.

When it comes to doing things for the first time, there’s no substitute for watching someone else do it properly first. Naturally, we’d all prefer to have someone show us in person, but it doesn’t always work out that way. My wife and I recently used YouTube to learn how to properly grill lobsters, knead pizza dough and lay tile. Last night, we got rid of the grout haze on our new kitchen floor by wiping it with a mixture of vinegar and water. Where do you think we learned about that technique?

It’s amazing to think of all the lifetimes that were wasted combing through card catalogs, encyclopedias and microfilm trying to find answers to obscure questions. Thankfully, those days are gone. An argument could be made that having a one-stop shop for observations, opinions and instructions on everything (much of which is wrong) further dilutes the physical and social network of human contact. That would be a valid point. But the internet also allows us to be virtually connected to virtually everyone. That has to count for something, right?