What do rashes, statistics & hard-to-pronounce German words have in common? My 2012 Wrap Up!

Happy new year! It's been a pretty stellar 365 days here on the Sprog. Daily posts for more than a year now & a growing audience--Google Analytics tells me that apparently at least some of you like what you see here & keep coming back. :) So I thought I'd do the customary round up type post for the year that's just ended.

To start off with, here are my top posts of 2012, in order of popularity:

Tide Pods Review: an Update Apr 14, 24 comments

Review: Tide Pods Mar 16

List #25: 10 things I've always wanted to do but never actually have May 14

Sprout's latest toy: Ikea Duktig Kitchen May 6, 2 comments

My car sharing story Jul 17, 4 comments

Review & Giveaway: Planet Bike Superflash Turbo Nov 30, 15 comments

Advertising Jun 5, 3 comments

Gear: Avalon Deluxe Umbrella Stroller Jan 6

List #47: Me vs. Younger Me Oct 14, 30 comments

Images by Bethany Giveaway: Win a Family Portrait Session & 8x10 Print Nov 23, 21 comments

Love it or hate it, Tide Pods is the thing that brings the most search traffic to The Sprog. Well, love it or hate it isn't really accurate: more like love it or detest it. My update post on Tide Pods detergent & how it gave us rashes continues to get comments months after I wrote it. To a one, they are all personal stories of skin reactions to this detergent, including what sound like quite serious emergency room visits.

Besides becoming a forum of sorts for the rash-inflicted, the Sprog has grown a lot this year, both in terms of what I've learned about blogging & you, my lovely readers. Average monthly visitors in January of 2012 was around 200, growing to over 1300 by the end of the year. The Sprog's monthly pageviews from January to December went from around 700 to about 3200. There are over a thousand comments here on the Sprog, not counting over 600 spam comments that I've lately been struggling to stay ahead of.

The Sprog's Twitter presence has taken off, despite the unprounouceable-in-English handle @blauelibelle, with around 500 followers at the moment. This is from a starting point below 100 a year ago--I wasn't really active for the first few months of the year on Twitter & definitely wasn't obsessing over keeping track of my stats then. The Sprog's Facebook page is also growing, though it's only a few months old, with over 100 followers currently. Besides the big two of Twitter & Facebook, I've also ventured onto Instagram & Pinterest. If you are more visually oriented, follow me there.

Lastly, but not leastly--okay, that wasn't a word, but it sounded cool, right?--I'd like to thank you for reading The Sprog & commenting here once in a while. I'm looking forward to another great year in Bloglandia. Which brings me to another bit of exciting news: The Sprog will be undergoing a metamorphosis in the near future... new name, shiny new domain, new look. But don't worry, you'll still see the same kind of posts on cycling, East Van, the occasional DIY project, living green, Sprout updates & pics, plus giveaways, of course. Stay tuned for the big reveal!

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