This surely deserves to be one of the miracles counted toward the canonization of Mother Teresa. Because reddit somehow picked up a piece I’d written on Agnes Bojaxhiu last March, the site garnered more than 300,000 views yesterday: four times higher than the previous record, and fifteen times higher than normal:
The Mother Teresa piece, based on a new paper written by two researchers at the University of Montreal, was devoted to debunking the myth of her greatness, much like Hitchens’s The Missionary Position. And I have no idea why it was so popular.
Congratulations! Up the next record!
WOW! Congratulations! For whatever reason, keep it up.
Congratulations!
I remember when my friend posted one of the articles from a little blog I had on reddit. Instead of 1 or 2 views that day, I got over 900.
Congratulations, next might even bring comprehension to the masses. 🙂
Well done.
Would it be okay to post a link to my friends blog on her experience of working with the sisters of charity?
I wondered why I was getting deja vu from my Twitter feed.
Congratulations btw!
I was wondering why this post had been resurrected, too!
Astonishing! Congrats.
Will it continue today? Gain? Drop off flat? Maybe post an update here tomorrow?
The Amazing Meeting On The Internet.
I just looked at the OP & comment thread. About a third of the comments are from the last couple days, with a couple repostings on the 7th. And then more repostings yesterday. So perhaps the spike is a snowball effect from those repostings.
And, Bojaxhiu. Bojaxhiu. Why does this trigger something? Aha! Might a rewrite of “Mr Bojangles” be possible. Lemme take the easy part of the first line:
Knew a nun Bojaxhiu, she’d panhandle you
In worn out shoes…
Pretty amazing effect.
Did I mention that I was up for sainthood. All I need is a miraculous surge in hits on my blog.
Way to be a game changer, Jerry.
“And I have no idea why it was so popular.”
Probably just because it was clear and well written. People go for that.
The only problem with Reddit is that it doesn’t translate into many, if any, long-term readers. I’m sure that if you looked at the time spent on your site (Google Analytics will give you the stats), it’s less than 30 seconds per hit average, meaning they didn’t really read your article and I’m sure your bounce rate is over 90%. Reddit doesn’t produce readers, it produces hits. Over the next couple of days, you might get some residual traffic, but within a week, you’ll be back to where you were, with no long-term positive effect from getting Reddit’d.
It might be great for people who are only blogging for ad revenue but for those of us who want long-term, interested, invested readers who come back day after day, it’s virtually useless.
Jerry has gone more viral than a Lolcat video.