Welcome to Year in Review at JasonShen.com. I’m going to spend a couple posts looking back on 2010 – lessons, successes, failures and general reflection. I hope you find it valuable and of course, I strive to write so that you can take these ideas back to your own challenges and kick some ass.
- Who Did You Learn From in 2010?
- A Review of JasonShen.com in 2010 (this post)
- Successes, Failures and Lessons in 2010 (coming up)
Reflections
One tradition I’m starting is a year end review of this blog – what went well, what didn’t go well. We can also look at some key stats and look at what my top content was. Posting all this information will ensure my motivation for improving in 2011 – I hope it’s valuable to you as well.
As I mentioned in my last post, Who Did You Learn from in 2010? I started blogging in large part because Hup inspired me to. I’m so glad I did. The site has helped me: A) improve my writing ability B) generate and share ideas with the world and C) meet really interesting people. It’s like a little magic engine. In goes hard work and lots of words and out comes fun surprises and random connections.
Other thoughts on blogging this year
- I really need to start scheduling posts in advance. When you’re on a roll, just keep writing and put some posts in the bank because you’ll wish you had them later
- Images at the beginning of posts definitely make a difference. Pick/find/make good ones.
- I’m going to start seeding my posts with a starting question in the comment to guide the discussion (hat tip Jenna Langer)
- Doing interviews on the blog is fun and interesting, but can be a little tricky to coordinate
- Four upvotes in under an hour will almost guarantee that your link gets on the front page of Hacker News
- I love Chartbeat for helping me understand who’s on my site and where they came from (hat tip Derek Flanzraich)
- It’s totally awesome to see hundreds of people reading your posts at the same time
- While big traffic spikes are nice, building a loyal readership is starting to take higher precedence (esp with email subscribers)
- I’m considering re-naming this blog something else. Any thoughts on “Kick Ass & Take Names”?
- Use quora to get blog post ideas. I’ve done this twice now with great success (Resolutions & Nontechnical Jobs)
Stats
I often wonder how much traffic other sites get and where it comes from. I’ve included here screenshots of relevant Google Analytics pages so you can see how the site has grown, how people came and what they do once they get here. Click the images to get a better view.
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Top Posts
Startups / Entrepreneurship
This is a topic I’m obviously very engaged in, as I work at a startup. I really enjoyed writing these posts and hearing from folks who said this helped them get ideas for their work or gave them a better sense of working at a startup is like. They also did quite well on Hacker News.
- 21 Lessons Learned in 21 Weeks at a Startup (13k pgviews)
- How to Land a Killer Job at a Tech Startup Out of College (10k)
- 7 Reasons Why AwesomenessReminders Is Actually Really Awesome (6k)
- What Kinds of Jobs Exist At Startups for Non-Technical People? (5k)
- Six Observations from Startup Weekend
Rejection Therapy
Rejection Therapy was seriously just a thing I did on a whim, thanks to the suggestion of my friend Christine. It ended up being much more and I wrote a number of posts to document my journey.
- The Rejection Therapy Challenge: Week 1
- The Rejection Therapy Challenge – Week 2 (7k)
- So You Want to Try Doing Rejection Therapy Eh? Here’s My Advice… (7k)
- The Rejection Therapy Challenge – Final Review (5k)
- San Francisco Chronicle covers Jason C, Jason S and Rejection Therapy
- Podcasts
General Ass-Kicking
When I’m not writing about entrepreneurship or rejection therapy, I write about how to kick ass. It’s a great time. One big surprise was the response to Winning Isn’t Normal – that post alone accounts for nearly a quarter of my total pageviews for the year. Crazy.
- Winning Isn’t Normal (30k pgviews)
- Guest Post on SebastianMarshall.com blog – Unorthodox Strategies for Winning
- How to Set Great New Year’s Resolutions (Backed by Scientific Research!)
- Contradictory Advice: Push Harder & Leave Some in the Tank
- How Commitment Can Make You 400% Better
Quotes
I love quotes – reading them, sharing them with others, etc. They’re like a quick little burst of an idea or insight. I think interspersing the blog with short posts makes it more palatable. There’s nothing wrong with filling your site with comprehensive, insightful essays – but the results can be intimidating to readers. Bite-sized quotes in big letters makes the blog easier to swallow.
- The Power (and Danger) of Quotations (essay on quotes)
- If You Always Put Limits on What You Can Do Then You Might As Well Be Dead (quote)
- Buddha on Conquering Oneself (quote)
- Stupid Amounts of Hours Simply Because They Believe In It (quote)
- Worth Writing or Worth Reading (quote)
- As soon as they put their hands on you… (quote)
Hope you enjoyed this year in review. Join the conversation by sharing what have YOU learned about blogging this year.
Jason Shen is the co-founder of 
[...] A Review of JasonShen.com in 2010 [...]
[...] I typically get around 100-150 people coming to the site on any given day. (You can see my stats from 2010 for more on this) and when I have a post hit Hacker News, that number can go up to 1-3 thousand. [...]
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