‘Mac Potpourri’ Column Reaches Milestone With 100 Stories Published-To-Date

FEATURE: 03.09.20- A major milestone has been reached in the “Mac Potpourri” column here on MacPrices and over the course of its existence on the worldwide web (just under two years total) with 100 articles written-to-date — not counting this, number 101 — and in commemoration, we take a look at some of the achievements it has accomplished.

Now in its third calendar year of publication, the “Mac Potpourri” column began in earnest here on the MacPrices website on May 14, 2018 and it, interestingly enough, didn’t start right off the bat (so to speak) being called what it is known as today: that would happen a few months later.

With 32 articles written in 2018, 64 in 2019 (coincidentally twice that of the previous year), and 4 more in 2020 (not counting this one), here we are finally at the 100 stories mark.

To celebrate and commemorate this major milestone — only the second after this column’s first year on the web — for “Mac Potpourri” here on MacPrices, we share with you five categories of awards, if you will, given to a few mini achievements reached from its inception to present day:

Total Number of Visitors to The “Mac Potpourri” Main Page

Most of my readers seem to come my way via either a Google search for a specific topic or by way of MacSurfer (where a link to my articles is shared with their website after being published here on MacPrices). However, some people visit the “Mac Potpourri” main page on a regular basis to find out what’s new in this column.

To date a total of 10,001+ visits have been recorded beginning with just 1,000+ from May to December 2018, growing by an additional 7,987 in 2019, and adding 1,014 in January and February of 2020 alone. As you can see, regular readership of this column is slowly, but surely, on the rise and will continue, hopefully, to attract even more readers in 2020 and beyond.

Most Facebook Likes Received By A Story

On February 23, 2019, the Facebook like plug-in was added to all articles moving forward from that date and in the first full year with that particular feature included at the end of each story, the articles tied for the most likes received during that time period were “Apple MP3 Music Player Lives On With Release Of New iPod touch” and “People Profiles: Saving The Planet In Turn Through Operation To Salvage Unwanted Macs” published on April 22 and June 7, both in that same year, respectively.

With both articles earning 38 likes, they were the two most popular ranked at the top for first place when considering social media attributes rather than WordPress statistics on page views. However, as I mentioned last month in the article regarding the five most read stories of 2019, the Facebook like plug-in is not an accurate measurement of a story’s standing (with most receiving 15± likes).

Most Evergreen Stories In The “Mac Potpourri” Column

Two of the most popular stories that refused to die (so to speak), thus remaining evergreen, and would receive monthly page views throughout the original date of publication until last month, February, the final statistics recorded before the 100th story was published prior to this particular one, were the articles “Advantages And Benefits Of Using iMessage On iPhone” and “Get A Job With Apple, The No. 3 ‘World’s Best Employer’” both of which were written back in 2018, the inaugural year of this column.

The former story, which received only 7,534 hits in the two or so weeks it was on the web in December 2018 (since first published and statistics for that month were recorded afterwards), would be very popular in 2019 with an additional 48,468 page views in that year alone and 5,635 more in 2020 (through February).

The latter story, which ranked fourth place out of the top five stories of 2018 with a total at the time of 15,529 page views, would receive an additional 36,071 number of hits throughout the months (from January through December)of 2019, and 1,251 more in the first two months of 2020 (recorded only in February).

What made these particular two stories popular on the web? Who knows? According to Steve Hildreth, publisher of MacPrices, Sometimes an obviously popular topic doesn’t gain much traction while a seemingly uninteresting subject ends up with a lot of hits. He added that Google can be a black box, and it’s anyone’s guess what their algorithm looks for (fresh and current are always good, but older topics can be and — though not as often — stay relevant).

Most Page Views For A Story Ever Recorded In A Single Month

As mentioned in the top five stories for last year written in February, we record only statistics monthly (at the end of each 30-day period, more or less, in some cases) for 1,000+ page views and disregard anything lower than that number. To-date, the story that has received the most hits in that time frame — a single month — is the 2019 article “With The New iPadOS, Apple Is Paving The Way For A Merger Of iOS & MacOS” that was published on July 26, giving it just five short days for exposure on the web before stats would be recorded.

With a total number of 24,336 page views in less than a week being online, this story ranked first place as one of the top five stories of 2019, but oddly enough did not garner any significant hits (1,000+) in the months thereafter proving that some articles’ popularity is a, hit, or miss.

Most Read Story Of All Time (out of the 100 Published-To-Date)

With a total of 61,637 total number of page views to-date since it was first published back on December 14, 2018 all the way through February 29, 2020 (when the last WordPress statistics for this particular story were recorded), is the aforementioned evergreen article “Advantages And Benefits Of Using iMessage On iPhone” which has even bested the two stories ranking in first place for the top five most read for 2018 and 2019 by a difference of 14,855 and 37,301 hits, respectively.

The story was a commentary revolving around the news that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) was planning to impose a tax on text messages sent by residents living in the state. I’m not sure if whether that topic was the Google search term that has been leading people to my article on a monthly basis since December of 2018 or whether it’s iMessage but one thing’s for sure: it has been pretty popular and currently ranks at the top for most read of all time!

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And? There you have it! 100 stories in the books (so to speak).

At this rate, the next milestone will either be the fifth anniversary of the debut of this column or the publication of story number 500, whichever comes first. (Writing on a weekly basis, I think it’ll be the former rather than the latter).

As always, thanks for stopping by this column here on MacPrices, especially if you are among one of the many individuals who are my regular readers. If you haven’t yet bookmarked the “Mac Potpourri” main page, be sure to do so and please keep coming back every week for the latest this writer has to offer.