Aixtal: One candle and 228,000 unique visits

[ French version - Version française ]

One year, 240 posts, 228,000 unique visits, 570,000 page views ... It’s been quite an adventure!

[Thanks Logogle]

To be honest, I can’t remember the exact date I created Aixtal (and it seems to be quite in fashion lately to forget one’s date of birth ...), but it was some time around the end of October 2004. I wrote a couple of test posts then deleted them immediately. The first post that’s still online dates from 10 November 2004; in it, I announced the release of Firefox in French [fr]. It all seems so long ago ...

At the time, my aim in starting this blog was to try out this new technology. I told myself that it could be a useful way of making announcements (like the one about Firefox) to my students in Traitement Automatique des Langues (Natural Language Processing) in Aix (hence the name Aixtal). But once I realised that other people had started poking around and finding things they liked, such as this post [fr], or this one [fr], I realised that I would have to take things more seriously and re-read everything I post [on the use of this word in French: fr] (I get a rap on the knuckles for every mistake I make – and you don’t miss a single one ;-).

The number of people reading this site really took off when I started writing about Google [1, 2, 3...] It even led to a kind of rave party here in Aixtal-en-Bloggie [fr], which threw me into a bit of a panic, I must admit (I’m not used to it, you see). And so it went on, with many an exciting moment (like this [fr]). The clickable chart below shows some of the highlights ...

It’s been a marvellous experience, and I have really learned a lot from you all. A blog teaches you rigour, and modesty … Whenever you slip up, there’s always someone there to point it out to you - in the nicest possible way. I am truly touched by the relevance and (mostly) the politeness of your comments.

My heartfelt thanks to you all!