Happy anniversary!

Today marks the first anniversary of www.peacefare.net, more or less.  Listen carefully to NPR, where a day sponsorship will mark the occasion!  Here are the stats, as of this morning:

• Posts:  this is number 562, not counting those I put up as “pages”
• Visits:  Googleanalytics says 31,304
• Page views:  59,931
• Unique visitors:  16,790
• Countries of origin:  149
• Visitors from the U.S.:  56%, hence 44% non-U.S. (most from Serbia, Kosovo, Italy, Bosnia, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Poland)
• New visits:  53%
• Pages per visit:  about 2
• Minutes on site:  about 2

I put all this in the so far, so good category.  I might wish for more, but even if the numbers were double I’d likely still wish for more.  And that high percentage of new visitors means peacefare is still growing, as do the 1200 or so Twitter followers, with 2-5 added most days.

The one clear area needing improvement is getting other people to write for the peacefare.net  I’ve had a few fabulous friends, students and colleagues contribute wonderful pieces, but not as many as I would like.  Peacefare is too much a solo act, something I regret.  Please help me fix that!

I would also hope for more comments.  My Balkans readers have engaged in rough and tumble debate, rarely moderated by my intervention.  The Middle East hasn’t yet elicited the same feistiness.  I wish it would.

Please accept my sincere thanks for your readership, which is really the only reason I do this almost every day.  I could just as well tuck these thoughts away, as I did during more than four decades of diplomatic career at the UN, State Department and U.S. Institute of Peace.  It is much more fun to get them out to you, so I sincerely hope you’ll keep reading, commenting and contributing when the spirit moves you.

On to year 2!