1,000 Posts FAQ

Wow, this really is the 1,000th post! That is a whole lot of content! How did you get started?

John: As I mentioned in the Bruce and John FAQ, we have been at this a while and have worked together in real life and online in various ways for many years. But I would mention in relation to the 1,000 posts number, actually we both cut a fair number of older content items when we merged our blog content to form Horn Matters.

Bruce: Yes we did delete a lot of old pages, but it was worth it to keep to good stuff and weed out articles that were too timely or too closely related to our old blogs.

So is Horn Matters a blog?

John: Sort of/kind of but also not really. It reads I think like, for the lack of a better term, an online magazine.

Bruce: The definition of a “blog” has morphed significantly in the past few years. In the old days, a blog was just a daily report of favorite links — much like our Random Monday posts. These days blogging platforms are being used to create full-fledged web sites that can combine multimedia, forums, portfolios, social networks … you name it. Myself, I would also call Horn Matters an online magazine.

How many people are visiting the site every week?

John: It kind of blows me away but we have had for weeks and weeks well over 2,000 unique visitors to the site every week.

Bruce: And don’t forget that we now have over 100 RSS subscribers, whose visits do not get counted unless they click-through to the site. (We also have over 500 fans on our Facebook page.)

What was the funniest thing you noticed in the statistics?

Bruce: One funny thing that John and I have both noticed is the lack of traffic from China. We must have said something, or fall into a general category of web site that Chinese authorities object to.

John: For me it was the day I noticed that someone in Columbus Ohio read had something like 160 pages on the site on an iPhone. While they were probably just killing time in an airport or something, that stat told me that we had accomplished for sure what we planned with the site and more, there is tons of content and it can be accessed very well. Regularly we see there are visitors who spend hours reading content and many keep coming back for more.

How does the size of Horn Matters compare to other horn websites on the Internet?

John: I am fairly sure it is the largest horn website on the Internet, and probably the highest traffic too. Which is pretty amazing for a site that did not exist before September of 2009, although the majority of the content did exist of course as it was from both of our old blogs.

Bruce: Horn Matters has a big advantage as a resource. Our combined articles cover a lot of ground. While John and I come from similar backgrounds, we are fairly diverse in our writing styles, topics and even in some general opinions about this-and-that. This is a good thing and is a big element of what gives Horn Matters its spark.

Any downside to the new site?

Bruce: I honestly don’t see too many downsides. The WordPress platform gives me occasional headaches when things go wrong — overall though, I am impressed and excited by WordPress and how far I have been able to hack and stretch it.

John: The only downside really is because it is a new site it does not show up as well in search engines as did our old sites. But that is still just a matter of time we think.

Bruce: At our one-year anniversary, we should be doing better.

What inspires you to keep going?

John: Once you get going it is not that hard to produce three or four posts a week which is what each of us aim for. I have dozens of draft articles started at any given time which also helps, plus at this point at least twenty articles that have not been re-posted from the original HTML Horn Notes Blog, which was started way back in 2004. Someday, when I am brave, I will re-post the very first post.

Bruce: At heart I am a problem-solver – this is why I like to teach and why I like to fiddle around with computers. I like too to think about music — what makes me and others tick. Expressing that in words can be a challenge. Sometimes I hit and sometimes I might miss, but the process is fun, especially if readers get involved and add their own comments.

What are your future plans?

Bruce: I keep forgetting how new Horn Matters really is. For the time being, I look forward to our one-year anniversary!

John: We have talked of a podcast and have other ideas we are exploring. But for the moment the main plan is another 1,000 posts!