As regular readers know, we run quarterly fundraisers at Eclectablog to raise funds to run the site and, more importantly, pay the writers and photographer. Although we do run ads, we are largely dependent upon your generosity for our blogging income. I thought it would be nice to have a look back at 2013 to give you an idea of what we accomplished. You’ll find that below.
If you’d like to be join those who find enough value at Eclectablog to make a contribution, there are three ways to help.
First, you can make your donation using the PayPal link below. You can change the amount if you wish. The default is $50 which is basically $1 per week, a pretty good value.
[donateplus]
Or you can wait until the TinyPass pop-up pops up (every tenth click on the site) and donate that way. If you do that, the popups will go away as long as you have cookies enabled. Again, the default amounts for annual or monthly donations can be adjusted to whatever you wish them to be. They are currently set to be around $1 per week. Again, it’s a great value.
Finally, if you would prefer to send a check, send me an email and I’ll give you the address. This is them most beneficial way for us because it avoids the Paypal and Tinypass fees that are taken from contributions to the site.
If you cannot afford to support us financially, you can still help. Please share our content on your Facebook page or other social media like Twitter, Reddit, etc. Put a “Like” on our Facebook page and click the “Invite friends” button and encourage your friends to like us, too.
Here are some Eclectablog stats from 2013:
- 1,323,341 pageviews
- 778,129 unique visitors (almost exactly two-thirds of which were new visitors)
- 90.1% of our 1,112,100 visits were from the United States of America, 2.9% from Canada, and 2.0% from the UK.
- Most of our visitors used the Chrome browser (299,454) or Safari (239,008)
- Most of you viewed the site on desktop computers (655,215), followed by mobile devices (340,353 – almost two-thirds of which were iPhones), and then tablets (116,537)
- Most of you are on Windows (477,021) followed by iOS mobile devices (318,581), and Macs (156,108). We’ve even had people visit from Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 consoles!
- Most popular cities: New York (35,812), Ann Arbor (28,217 a lot of which are probably me), Detroit (24,084), and Chicago (22,597)
All told, there were 912 Eclectablog posts in 2013. Our Top Ten posts were these:
- Starving Michigan schools: Capital City Lansing schools eliminate ALL art, music and phys. ed. teachers – 35,364 pageviews
- Michigan about to require women to buy “rape insurance” based on petition signed by 4.2% of voters – 25,311 pageviews
- Until we restore Glass-Steagall, more big bank bailouts are inevitable (by LOLGOP) – 23,219 pageviews
- Snyder admits making Michigan a Right to Work state was never about creating jobs – 23,012 pageviews
- Fox “reporter” has new rear excretory orifice installed by Obama State Department – 19,225 pageviews
- Michigan Attorney General Schuette: Marriage is for regulating sexual relationships to make babies – 18,830 pageviews
- The carried interest loophole for millionaire traders is the perfect example of the tax breaks the GOP is risking recession to protect (by LOLGOP) – 17,726 pageviews
- Now Michigan’s Republicans want forced transvaginal ultrasounds (by LOLGOP) – 17,544 pageviews
- INTERVIEW: Teacher of the Year used by StudentsFirst & Mackinac Center to promote teacher pay bill he doesn’t support – 15,418 pageviews
- 2 new studies prove conservative policies are destroying the middle class (by LOLGOP) – 14,481 pageviews
We also did some amazing interviews with a wide array of people over the year, many of which featured Anne’s remarkable photographs:
- Former Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer
- Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lon Johnson
- Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean
- Journalist Lee Fang
- Equality Michigan Managing Director Emily Dievendorf
- Detroit activist and leader Rev. David Alexander Bullock
- Arbor Brewing Company’s Matt and Rene Greff
- Comedienne Lizz Winstead
- Candidate for Congress (MI-07) Pam Byrnes
- Michigan Association of Justice executive board member and attorney Dan O’Neil
- Move to Amend activist David Cobb
- Democratic candidate for governor Mark Schauer
- Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Gary Peters
- Gordon Soderberg from the Veterans Green Bus
- Flint Mayor Dayne Walling (and HERE)
- April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse who are challenging Michigan’s discriminatory same-sex marriage ban
Finally, as a special bonus, here are a selection of Anne’s finest photos from 2013. Most of them appeared on Eclectablog but some of them never made into a post and are being seen here for the first time.
Thank you all so much for your support. We’re looking forward to a rocking 2014 where we’ll be on the front lines of helping Democrats regain the Governor’s and Lt. Governor’s offices, the Secretary of State and Attorney General’s offices, and, of course, the state legislature.
If you’d like to help us with our efforts, please consider making a donation today.
