Ben – I do agree, the numbers are very high! I notice this on my other stats counter as well – I got very excited to see over 40 hits this morning, then realised that about 30 of them were from me, since I was going backwards and forwards on my blog last night writing the above post! And when you see that almost 200 visitors passed through and seemed to spend 0:00 minutes on the blog – well, that puts it into perspective! But sometimes you can tell that there have been real people, who have spent a couple of minutes reading a post, and they have come from a place where I know I might have been mentioned, or have posted a comment in the past – and that makes it seem all worthwhile!

Above all, Ben, I am glad that you have found blogging to be useful – and, I hope enjoyable – that was what I hoped for with the TTP programme. It’s also nice to see that others are reading and being inspired by your blog! Great news!

I feel strangely satisfied about my mention on your blog. It was you, of course, who initially introduced me to blogging on the TTP course. It’s been a fantastically useful tool – I’m very grateful!

Like you, going through the Better Blog challenge forced us to look at why we were blogging and what we hoped to get out of it. Most of the participants were teachers and they came to the same conclusion you have, which is that they were primarily interested in the social aspect of blogging as a way to connect to other people, rather than doing it to make money or have a ton of readers. I think it’s good to go through these activities, though, because they do help you get more focus and even if you’re in it for the social part, we can still do things to make our blogs better for connecting. Hope you enjoy the rest of the activities!