A year of blogging

Today this blog is a year old. On the whole I've tried to write consistently on the media, politics, current affairs, corporate/personal reputation and broad communications trends around the world. Occasionally I've strayed from these themes and have dabbled at subjects as diverse as doping in sport, country music, Britishness, cricket, The Red Arrows, theatre and even a Soviet issue vintage watch.    

I have had great support from Tim Montgomerie and Conservative Home who put my flashing head on the front page for a number of days - scary but a great way to boost readership so thanks Tim. Iain Dale frequently included my stuff in his Daley Dozen which was also much appreciated. The other big beast of the 'right-wing' blogosphere Guido Fawkes recommended a number of my posts to huge impact - particularly those attacking Chris Huhne.

Even in the last year blogging has changed considerably which has seen readership decline in recent months. I wrote in July about the rise of the mega-blog which are platforms for a wide and diverse collection of bloggers. Recognising this trend I accepted Iain Dale's kind invitation to write for his platform, Dale & Co.

In the last couple of months I have found motivation to blog - alongside running a business - difficult to maintain. This has also affected readership as one key rule of blogging is to keep consistently posting or your readers will go elsewhere. On the whole I have enjoyed thinking about the world in a much more detailed way than ever before to craft blogs and deliver (hopefully) arguments of sufficient levity to get people coming back.   

I am heartened sufficient numbers of people voted for me in the annual Total Politics blogging awards that I was voted:

-Number 16 in the Top 50 Conservative bloggers
-Number 35 in the Top 50 right-wing bloggers
-Number 50 in the Top 50 media blogs

Thank you to everyone who voted for me.

Later today I will list the top 10 blogs of the past 12 months as well as my personal favourites.