Connecting the Dots

What started off as part experiment, part stage and part adventure has turned into a place thousands of people visit every month. Connecting the Dots has become by many standards more than it was ever imagined to be.

We try not to stand looking into the mirror too often, but occasionally it is good to check if our fly has become unzipped. And what we see today is growth that simply says people like what they see at Connecting the Dots. The niche we have found of predicting what will happen, and showing people how things that are seemingly separate are actually connected has provided plenty of interest.

Not everyone agrees with what we have to say, nor should they. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and they should be allowed to voice it. We do not get a lot of comments to our posts because we are future looking and not so much debating the past. However we do get a lot of emails asking questions and our thoughts. Nobody has yet to send us a nasty email threatening us or black mailing us in anyway. If they do it will be up for all the world to see in a matter of minutes. And with our traffic it should not be too long before all the world is staring to see what will happen.

Speaking of traffic, Google has seen fit to up our page ranking on popularity, and depending on how you set the parameters, we are now pushing 40,000 unique visits a month. Seeing that is about double what we had 4 or 5 months ago, it can only be seen as approval by the masses. If this growth curve continues as it is we will add between 1000 and 5000 new visitors a month. In November alone we had over 10,000 more new visitors than October.

We have been called a Thailand political blog and we have been cited in some high traffic sites as a place to go and check out. But in reality we look to be more global and Thailand’s unique form of politics does provide good material to write about. That is particularly so when many of the Thai politicians seem to enjoy making fools or an ass of themselves on a regular basis. Watching one group of Thai politicians working at pushing Thailand forward, while another self serving group is working on pushing Thailand backwards is sad but amusing.

But hot topics in other countries like Iran and places where people like to explode also make for good reads. Predicting what will happen there is interesting and our near 80% being correct track record keeps readers coming back. Many times we write predictions and put them in Que to be published, but the predicted events come to pass before our post goes online.

We are also not afraid to venture into places that others may shy from. When you make predictions, it is hard to be accused of defamation or other past tense issues like accidently getting things wrong and needing to print some sort of retraction because somebody got pissed off.

More than once in fact very regularly we touch on a topic and viewpoint and then see a journalist that reads Connecting the Dots write about it. To that we must simply say we are flattered.

We also try to express things in a way that is different but objective and if appropriate make a satirical post on it. We have seen events that have been tied to political correctness and have resulted in significant harm or damage. So with that thought in mind, pointing out that political correctness does more than promote premature aging, it can also have fallout on national security. One example is being too shy to check for underwear laced with explosives. This is a direction we will be following with great interest.

So as we continue to grow we invite you to visit us regularly. As for predicting our own future, a lot depends on our mood. Posting daily for coming up on 2 years does take a toll, and we may take a short break, but we are still undecided on that. Getting a few more people to join us in posting would be nice and our door is always open to worthy talent.

As 2010 wears on we hope to cover a wider variety of topics that people are interested in. However that all depends on how much time we have. We spend between 1 and 4 hours on most stories, and that seems to be paying off in our popularity. We do not just sit down and blast away at the keyboard looking to fill a post for the day. But that does eat into time for other things. So on that thought, take a moment to enjoy life and cherish your blessings of today as someone plans to mess them up for tomorrow.