100 posts later and it’s time to look back at what worked and what’s in store for 2008.

It’s been a wild ride for The Journalism Iconoclast since launching on June, 28, 2007. I didn’t really know what to expect when I launched the blog, but it quickly picked up popularity due to someone putting one of my first posts on StumbleUpon and Martin Stabe proclaiming on June 30 about the JI, “One to add to the reading list immediately.”

I have no real goals for the blog in terms of visitors, but the the JI has been averaging more than 3,000 page views a month (according to Google Analytics), RSS subscriptions have been steadily rising and the blog has risen as high as No. 6 on Journalism Daily for most popular blogs in the world, as measured by Social Rank. Web Trends claims the blog receives exponentially higher amounts of traffic, but Web Trends does a poor job of filtering out bot traffic. For me, however, the strength of a blog is a lot more than just visitors or subscribers — it’s about a conversation.

The posts that make me happiest are the ones that spur the best conversation. I’d much rather a post have half as many page views and twice as many comments. Blogging is not an online column. It’s a conversation, and when the conversation is most alive is when a blog is at its best.

I’ll be recapping the most popular posts, whether they be by page views, delicious tags or comments, and I’ll also display some of my best posts that more people should have read. I’m sure I’m not the only blogger who will tell you that sometimes you write a post and you think it will be popular and it just doesn’t happen. The content, message and writing are all there, but an independent blog sometimes needs a bit of luck for a post to set the blogsphere a blaze.

All the posts in the first top 10 are quality posts that I’m not surprised that people liked, but many of the posts in the second Top 10 list are some of the best posts this blog has ever had. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I bet if I mentioned Paris Hilton in all of my posts, I’d get a lot more traffic. That or Jub-Jub.

The Top 10 posts that everyone read:

1. Not everyone deserves a blog
2. Newspapers can make (a lot) of money on the Web
3. Not every print item should go on the Web
4. How not to do hyperlocal
5. Video does not equal new media
6. The Web is the greatest thing to ever happen to journalism
7. You can’t win an online race without (good) horses
8. Summer reading list
9. Journalism skills in 2007
10. Do newspapers need to be innovators?

The top 10 posts that no one read:

1. You need swagger to succeed on the Web
2. Podcasting done right, CNET style
3. Journalists say and do the darnedest things, vol. 1
4. Show photos some love
5. Build a digital résumé and make yourself stand out
6. Technology is the key to journalism
7. Staffing a modern newsroom
8. CNN understands how users read text better than print people do
9. Journalism students, do you want jobs?
10. Why newspapers don’t appeal to young people | Why newspapers don’t appeal to young people, part 2 (A lot of people read these last two that share No. 10, but many more should read them because it helps explain about why young people just haven’t been excited by newspapers recently.)

2008 holds a lot in store for the JI. A redesign is on the way with new features and a new way of displaying content. That may be a bit off, however, but it’s hardly a major step forward for the blog. The biggest thing I hope to accomplish this year is adding more bloggers onto the JI. I have had some guest bloggers in the past, but it would be nice to have them more often and to have several regular contributors.

If you are interested in writing for the JI, please contact me at connect (at) patthorntonfiles (dot) com. Journalism needs many voices. 2008 promises to be a tumultuous time for journalism, and the only way we can save journalism is by thinking outside the box.