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23.7.09

Ionarts Turns 6: State of the Blog

The improbable adventure of Ionarts began six years ago today. I thank all of the people, especially Jens Laurson, Mark Barry, Michael Lodico, and Todd Babcock, who have put in a lot of time and work, without any real remuneration, to make Ionarts what it is. We also thank all of you who read, comment, link to us, and have helped put Ionarts on the map. Keep telling people you know about Ionarts: sign up for the weekly newsletter and forward it to your friends.

For the record, over the course of the past six years we have published 3,880 posts, including this one, and received over 1.7 million visitors from all around the world. Just in the last 24 hours, people have read this site in Seattle, Provo, San Francisco, Wichita, Milwaukee, Cedar Rapids, Albany, and Montreal; in Rio de Janeiro, Caracas, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Santiago; in Leeds, Magdeburg, Paris, Brussels, Skellefteå, Utrecht, Rome, Valencia, and Lisbon; in Hong Kong, Chennai, Seoul, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Dubai, Brisbane, and Wellington. In our sixth year, we have published 571 posts from Santa Fe, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New York, Beijing, Rome, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and of course Washington, D.C. We have gone on to publishing cultural pieces in mainstream publications, including the Washington Post, Opernwelt, Playbill Arts, and Musical America, and we have seen more print journalists try their hand at blogging. We have reviewed opera, orchestras, chamber music, jazz, recordings, DVDs, art, movies, and dance, and we have linked to odd tidbits of cultural reporting, by ourselves and others around the world.

In short, the state of the blog is good, very good, and we continue to gain ground in all of those things bloggers care about. Ionarts has continued this year as one of the Top 10 Classical Music Blogs, according to some rankings of such things:

Who knows where this is all going, but for now we are content to sit back and enjoy the ride.

UPDATE:
Well, it took the better part of a day, but Mrs. Ionarts has finally agreed to put her widow's black back in the closet and allow me to continue Ionarts for another year. In all seriousness, none of what I do here could happen without her support and love. And indulgence, miles and miles of indulgence of my least whims. Gros bisous, ma biche!

8 comments:

Mark Barry said...

Happy Birthday! I'm so honored to be a small part of this wonderful feed, Charles's thoughtful (mostly) edits and incredibly grateful for spell check.

Anonymous said...

As a regular reader of this blog, I continue to be impressed by the thoughtful reviews, previews, and commentary I see here week after week. You're performing a great service to arts lovers in DC. Thanks, and congratulations on your 6th anniversary.

Frank Pesci said...

Happy Birthday, ionarts!

Charles T. Downey said...

Mark, thoughtless editing is my specialty!

glebowski said...

Hearty congrats !!!!

This site is the web's nonpareil classical music review site in my opinion.The range and depth of coverage is wondrous!
My best wishes for your continued success.

Chris Hoh said...

Many happy returns. I'm a new reader, but a fan. Have moved from D.C. area, alas, but perhaps can file a contribution while here in Kulturstadt Wien.

rb said...

happy birthday to one of my most favorite blogs ever!

:D

now make a wish....

Lindemann said...

Congrats to you. This site is essential reading for anyone interested in culture in D.C. Just like it says at the top of the page!