The Right Blue: 2009 Review

by B. N. Sullivan

So, here we are at the beginning of a new year on the calendar, and a new decade as well.  We hope our readers had an enjoyable holiday season, and we wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010!    During our holiday break we took some time to review where we've been -- literally and figuratively.  For one thing, we reviewed what we produced here on The Right Blue over the past year.  We also took a good look at the 2009 traffic statistics for this blog.

Here are a few interesting nuggets we discovered.  In 2009, readers in 170 different countries visited The Right Blue. About 67% of our readers were in the United States.

Well over half of the traffic to The Right Blue came via search (mostly Google).  Thousands of people landed at The Right Blue after searching for information about fire coral -- the number one phrase among a total of more than 13,000 unique search terms.  Most of the other top search terms were the name of some creature -- sharks, sea turtles, nudibranchs, various fishes and corals. And then there were the innumerable versions of the question about why the sea is blue: "why is the sea blue"; "why does the sea look blue"; "what makes the sea blue"; "how come the sea is blue" -- and so on ad infinitum!

Search produces the most traffic to The Right Blue, but the number two source of 2009 traffic -- about 20% -- was StumbleUpon.com (and we thank the readers who liked a post enough to Stumble it!)  We also noted a substantial (and growing) amount of traffic from both Twitter and FBI Blogs. Considering we only joined FBI Blogs in May, and Twitter in June, we are both amazed and gratified to see that these associations have become so fruitful so quickly.  Big thanks to Damon Tucker, who runs FBI Blogs, for inviting us to become a part of this group of top-notch Big Island bloggers, and thanks as well to our fellow FBI bloggers for their support.  (Note: In case you may not know, 'FBI' stands for 'from Big Island' -- not that other federal FBI.)

Speaking of Twitter,  Jerry has been the official Twitterer for The Right Blue since June of 2009, and thanks to his efforts, @therightblue already has just shy of 4,000 followers.  Jerry tweets the titles and links to everything we post here on the blog, of course, but most of what he tweets is ocean news and interesting finds on the Web about the ocean, marine science, conservation, and related topics.

Among the articles we posted on The Right Blue in 2009, these five were the most popular, based on number of visits to each:

1. Tiger Cowries: The largest cowries in Hawaii, posted in May.
2. Conus striatus - a fish-eating cone shell, posted in April
3. Stingrays: Dangerous or not?, posted in May
4. Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles, posted in May
5. The Octopus: Nature's ultimate shape shifter, posted in December

I should note that although the above were the five most popular items posted in 2009, they were not the five most popular articles overall.  That honor went to three articles from 2008, and two from 2007.  In the next post we'll tell you which articles on The Right Blue have attained the status of Perennial Favorites.

About the photo: The image on this page shows a Southern Stingray (Dasyatis americana), a species common to the Caribbean, and occasionally seen in the Bahamas and along the coasts of south Florida.  I photographed this one at Stingray City, a popular dive site in the Cayman Islands.

To Friends of 'The Right Blue' -- Thank You!

From time to time, one of our readers writes about one of our articles or photos and links to The Right Blue. Some of our fellow bloggers have given awards to The Right Blue. We list all of these on our blogroll page, but we admit we're not very good about passing them along.

Today we would like to acknowledge and thank those who have given us recognition in the past few months, including (in chronological order):

• Gabriel at Live from Waterloo
• Lavender Bay at Voice of the Turtle
• 2SWEETNSAXY at Eyes Mind Heart (who gave us two awards!)
• Antigoni at Antigoni's Diary
• Chris at A Free Man
• Pua and Keoki at Best Hawaii Vacation Blog
• Sheila at Go Visit Hawaii

In addition, we'd like to recognize artist Carol Cooper who wrote a thoughtful piece on her blog, Compass WebWorks, about how photographers help all of us to see things in the world that we might otherwise not see, except Through Their Eyes. To illustrate her point, Carol used a macro photo of Bubble Coral, by Bobbie.

And then there is ZJ, who writes The Sreisaat Adventures in Cambodia. ZJ and Bobbie are both regular Wordless Wednesday participants and have been visiting each other's blogs for at least a year now. Imagine what a surprise it was to visit her blog this past Wednesday to see that she had posted a photo she took of a shark, and had titled that post Emulating Bobbie! What a wonderful compliment!

We thank these blogger friends for thinking of us in such a positive way and expressing it. We also would like to thank all of our subscribers and regular readers, especially those who participate interactively with us by asking questions and leaving comments. Included in that group are the many participants in the Wordless Wednesday and Watery Wednesday photo memes who stop by each week.

Special thanks goes to those who have submitted various pages on The Right Blue to StumbleUpon and Digg.

You are all 'true blue' Friends of The Right Blue!

So, we decided to give all of you our own Friend of The Right Blue award. If you like, you can put a Friend of The Right Blue badge on your blog's awards page or sidebar [we've made three different sizes], but regardless, please know that we appreciate all of you very much. We enjoy your virtual companionship, and we are grateful for your friendship and support. Thank you all so much!

In cruise mode -- with a little help from our friends

Our month-long vacation is behind us, but before we begin with the next round of diving adventures, we'd like to acknowledge some friends of The Right Blue.

Several of our fellow bloggers have written reviews and articles about The Right Blue in their own blogs:

Matt Keegan, a.k.a. The Article Writer, featured The Right Blue in a piece he wrote entitled Blogging Can Be Thankless Or Tremendously Rewarding.

Fellow Hawaii-based blogger Charley Foster referred his readers to The Right Blue in an article on his blog, Planet Kaua'i.

A photo of Bobbie and a post about The Right Blue appeared on the blog run by Samish Divers of Bellingham, Washington.

Fellow 'baby boomer' Rosie wrote a very complimentary review of The Right Blue on her blog, Rosie's Boomer Review.

Penguin lover Wiinterrr featured our article about the Blue Penguins of New Zealand on A Penguin's Tale.

We appreciate their role in spreading the word about The Right Blue, and helping us to grow. We encourage our readers to visit these excellent blogs, too.

Some of our fellow bloggers honored us with awards. In fact, in mid-October we received two awards on the same day!

Dawn at AntiBarbie.net gave us a Beautiful Blog Design Award "For having the best pictures EVER!" Thank you, Dawn. You made us blush.

Later the same day, we heard from Jos at NoDirectOn (not: NoDirection), who gave us a Community Blogger Award. The award "celebrates people who reach out and make the blogging community a better one."

Then, a few weeks later, Jos also gave us a "Be the Blog" badge. "This badge is for bloggers who make their blog their own, stay with it, interact with their readers, and have fun!" Many thanks, Jos, for both of those awards. We greatly appreciate the fact that you appreciate The Right Blue!

Kathy, who displays her excellent work at Photography by KML, gave us an Amazing Blogger Award. Thank you for the recognition, Kathy.

Speaking of Kathy, she also is one of our most faithful commentators. She and Bernie Kasper of BFK Photography not only comment on our stories and photos more frequently than anyone else, their comments on Bobbie's photos are especially appreciated, since both Kathy and Bernie are such accomplished photographers themselves.

Among our other frequent commentators are the members of the Photography Group at Blog Catalog, and our fellow Wordless Wednesday participants. We thank them for returning to The Right Blue again and again and keeping the conversations lively.

Traffic to The Right Blue has steadily grown over the course of our first six months, thanks in part to readers such as Thomas Laupstad and Mark Stoneman, who have submitted the site and particular articles to Stumbleupon. We're sure that this has resulted in an expanded readership for The Right Blue, and we are grateful to them.

We are truly touched by the continued positive and enthusiastic response to The Right Blue, and we thank all of our readers and commentators for making this venture seem worth doing!

A Right Blue thank you to our virtual friends

This blog, The Right Blue, is three months old today. The growth of this project since its launch in mid-July has greatly exceeded our expectations on every measure.

At the time we launched The Right Blue, we imagined that the project would be of interest mainly to our family, and our old friends and dive pals. We hoped that perhaps a few other divers and photographers also might find The Right Blue and enjoy it, but we really didn't expect the reach to be very wide.

Much to our amazement and delight, The Right Blue quickly attracted many visitors beyond our circle of family and friends, and it turns out that a large percentage of those visitors return again and again. We know this not only from our traffic statistics, but because they give us feedback via comments on individual posts and on our contact form. A substantial number have subscribed to our RSS feed. They like The Right Blue!

Among those regular visitors are some fellow bloggers, none of whom we have ever met in person, and most of whom are not divers! They became virtual friends and supporters who have encouraged us and helped spread the word about our project by linking to us, submitting our posts to social bookmarking sites, and writing unsolicited reviews of The Right Blue. (Click here for a list of those who have linked to us.)

Today we'd like to acknowledge these friends who have helped make The Right Blue such a success in just three months time. In particular, we thank Brian (Apathetic Lemming of the North), Marisa (Marisa's Dandelion Patch), and Charley (Planet Kauai) for writing very kind reviews of The Right Blue in their blogs. Mike (Reality Is Over Rated) specifically praised The Right Blue in a discussion thread on Blog Catalog. Jim and Em at GO! Smell the flowers not only wrote a review of The Right Blue, but invited us to participate by replying to the many comments to their article about diving.

We thank Evelyn (Homespun Honolulu) for including a post from The Right Blue in the Blog Carnival of Aloha. Pua at the Best Hawaii Vacation Blog asked us to write a guest post about diving in Hawaii, which was published yesterday.

The members of the Photography Group at Blog Catalog also have been particularly supportive and encouraging, and Wordless Wednesday participants have visited The Right Blue in droves.

Thank you all so much. We truly appreciate your support and we hope you continue to enjoy the stories and photos of The Right Blue.