Bloglights 2005

Taking my cue from Gapingvoid, here are my bloglights from 2005.

7" version:

Been brill really. Learned bags. Blogged buckets. Commented heaps. Read heaps of comments :) Read stacksablogs. Met some lovely people ;) Looking forward to '06. Massive.

12" version:

January - Big surprise. Get nominated for a Bloggie Award.

February - The mainstream media went a bit foodblog mental for a wee while. Lorra fun.

March - Behind the blog scenes, I finished working on a story for BBC Wildlife Magazine and Action Asia Magazine about the plight of pink humpback dolphins in the waters around Taiwan. All told, this story took about a month to do. I wasn't entirely happy with the end result - Have you ever tried getting any sense out of the Taiwanese government? No? I don't recommend it - but I learned a lot and out of all the stories I worked on in 2005, this was probably the most interesting. March 15 - Lost big time at The Bloggies to a hot, hipster chick in go-go boots. Maan... I can still feel the cold steel of her 8 inch deep stilleto heel. Found solace (and glue) among the comments :)

April - New York Times mentions noodlepie. I had a tonne of press in 2005. What with the Bloggies, NYTimes, The Guardian, Observer, San Francisco Chronicle, Bon Appetit among others. Interestingly though, it was only the NYTimes mention that put a very visible dent in my statistics. April 20 - Invited to join the foodblog advertising network at BlogAds. Got off to a slow start, but things have picked up in recent months. The most I've earned from advertising in one month is about $400. Google Adsense now brings in about $60 per month. I'm not about to retire.

May - Who is Miss Vietnam?

June - Started compiling the Vietnam Blogs list. I've stopped now.

July - BBC TV featured noodlepie on their rather good Click Online programme.

August - A powercut strikes, I have a deadline to meet for The Guardian. I end up interviewing Jeff Jarvis and others from a crumby, mosquito ridden, internet cafe in Saigon's District 10. Love new media. Love lo-fi working. Hate powercuts. August 6 - Thrilled to see the start of Sticky Rice in Hanoi.

September - My fave noodlepie blog post from 2005 - will be back there very soon with NoStar Where & co. September 26 - Launch of the new design. I've grown to really like it. More minimal. More massive. Just more.

October - Podcast interview with Hugh Fraser at Blog Relations. FWIW, I think this podcast series is going from strength to strength. Loved the last three - Molly, Scoble/Macleod and Metcalfe. Keep it up Hugh. October 18 - The Offal Quiz is unleashed. October 25 - The Handy Hedgerow Guide is pruned.

November - Featured in a lovely piece about SE Asian food bloggers at Global Voices. November 22 - Bought www.stillbop.com. Still dicking around with it. Thinking of starting a beekeeping blog. As soon as I... errr... buy some bees. Maybe a hedgerow foraging blog. Dunno. Summit very different though. For now I think at stillbop. It's a beautifully minimal corner of the internet.

December - I realise I can create beautiful things with a cameraphone.

Blogjobwise, In 2005 I got more offers to write for magazines and newspapers as a direct result of the blog. I ended up turning a couple of places down, but I did do pieces for TIME, similarly for The Guardian and again here. There were other pieces. A story for The Journalist was fun. In recent weeks, Food & Wine Magazine and The New York Times have asked me to work for them. All very nice, but what's been interesting to me is how many stories I've ended up writing that have stemmed from some blog post I've read somewhere. I'm working on two of those at the moment. I'll be blogging more about that at stillbop through January.

Statswise, there's PubSub. Unfortunately, I'm a bit thick. I don't really understand it. Apparently, noodlepie has a Google pagerank of 5, but again I don't really know what that means. There's also the increasingly brilliant Technorati and the statcounter.com graph.

2006wise, Am pondering that. Exciting. Dangerous. Different. Can't wait. Hope you have a big one. Make your own prediction.

Technorati Tags: 2006 review, blogs, gapingvoid

Comments

[Kalyn]

I've only discovered your blog during the last few of those months, but I have really enjoyed it. Good luck in 2006.

[Rose]

Noodlepie was one of the first blogs i had ever read when I first kinda "discovered" blogs eight months ago. Your posts continue to entertain me. Look forward to stillbop in 2006. Best for 2006!

[pieman]

Cheers - I appreciate it. I always get a buzz discovering new blogs I really like and I am immensely chuffed some folk get that same buzz from happening across my turf :))))))

Have a big one.

[Reid]

Hi Noodlepie,

I predict that you'll be even bigger and better in 2006. Keep up the good work, I'll still be around even after you depart from VN.

[Robyn]

All the best for 2006, pieman. Will be interested to see where you are (physically, that is) one year from now.