Saturday, December 28, 2013

2013 Year End Report of the sidisanneh.blogspot.com

25,000 pageviews and counting. Gambians continue to read us more and more - a very encouraging development. Keep it up Gambia. Equally encouraging is the inroads we continue to make in far-flung Finnish/Swedish Ă…land Islands. We continue to field questions from journalists abroad about Gambia and what's going on there. Recent blogs on Taiwan and the Syrian doctors have generated significant amount of interest from journalists abroad.

On Taiwan and the severance of diplomatic relations, both local and international journalists are digging further into some of the issues raised. We have also provided them with additional details and views from our vantage point. Regarding Syria, many eyebrows were raised,. So we were not the only one flabbergasted. We promise to continue following this story which has captured the curiosity of many among our readers. 

We started publishing on 26th August 2013. At the end of the year, we have published 85 blog posts in 126 days for an average of 4.7 blogs every week. While we will not resolve in 2014 to maintain this blistering pace, we will try to bring you analyses of issues and events to help readers understand them better.

On a lighter note, the most popular story of the year was the photo editorial of Jammeh's BMW X6 limousines which over-took "A rattled dictator" about Jammeh's humiliating treatment at the hands of a handful of Gambian dissidents during the UN General Assembly. Interestingly, the limousine 'story' was one I spent the least time (exactly 15 minutes). It is, therefore, tempting to just spent few minutes each day posting pictures of Jammeh's mansions and elegant Rolls Royce automobiles which would only go to defeating the purpose of the blog in the first place i.e. to provide analyses of developments in Gambia, the region and Africa. 

Finally, we close the year by saying A BIG THANK YOU to our readers in the U.S., Gambia, U,K. Sweden, Germany, France, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Tunisia Senegal, Beijing and around the world. We hope you will continue to visit us in even larger numbers in 2014 and beyond. We must also thank our friends, yes, at the Daily Observer. Anytime we draw a blank, DO always comes through for us by providing a topic, be it some budget shenanigans from the Finance Minister or a display of total ignorance of monetary policy by the Secretary General at Jammeh's office or DO's own sycophantic display of editorial malfeasance. We thank them all the same. 

Final finally, we wish you all good health and a prosperous New Year.

THANK YOU ALL