It’s time to look back at this year’s A-Z. Here are a few of my thoughts…
It appeared there were significantly fewer bloggers this year. Seems like in the early years we where in the 300s, then the 200s. I think this is due to the decline in the overall number of bloggers. With social media, blogs aren’t as popular as they were. Made worse by the fact most social media outlets don’t like links to outside sources in posts. I’ve started putting mine in the first comment. Helps a little bit – sometimes.
I use a blog reader app on my MacBook, iPad, and iPhone (NetNewsWire) and was already following a fair number of folks that participated in previous years. As I went through the master list, added a bunch more. Now the challenge is done, I will move those who continue regular blogging (assuming I am interested in their content) into a new folder, leaving the rest in my A-Z folder. Since I follow a lot of blogs, this method works for me. I get too many emails already so I don’t sign up for notifications.
No, I didn’t use the provided graphics (and didn’t last year either); instead I created my own. I haven’t been a fan of the graphics for several years (I bit too cluttered and colors that clash with my blog colors).
Will I do A to Z in 2026? I have no idea…only time will tell. But I am very glad I jumped in this time around.
Other Blog Notes
- For those with Blogger blogs, I really missed a LIKE button. I also didn’t ask for emails for new comments, as I said, I already get too many emails. If I remembered, I would go back and read any responses to my comment, but most of the time I forgot to check.
- For those with WordPress blogs, I loved those that offered a LIKE button. It was a quick way to let the author know I had visited but had no comment at that time.
- I tended to just scan the really long blogs. While there may have been some good or interesting facts/stories, there just wasn’t time unless they really captured my interest. Several longer blogs did just that:
- More blogs I really enjoyed:
- Wendy’s Waffle
- J-Dubs Grin & Bear It
- lynnelives (sidenote: Lynne and I have been friends online since the 2012 A-Z and heyday of Twitter)
- Lightning Flash: Blink & You’ll Miss it
- Mainely Write (Donna is another I met during previous A-Z)
Visitors to my Blog
- I had more than a few regular visitors who not only clicked the LIKE button, but commented. I personally love the LIKE button and wish it were offered on all blogs (but understand why it’s not).
- I’m glad I jumped in on day one and stuck with random posts. It was fun and while a couple were serious, most were light and many involved memories of growing up. In the past, I always pre-wrote to a theme where the words were pre-selected.
- As the month progressed, more A-Z folks had time to visit more blogs and both my visitor count and comment count increased.
Thank you to everyone who has visited and a double thank you for your comments!
I’m still deciding what to do with this blog, watch for a poll/survey tomorrow.
If you’d like to keep up with me, my social media links are either in the right hand column or at the bottom of the page (depending on what device you are using). Just let me know you found me via the challenge!
Till next time…
I enjoyed reading your posts, as well as your support with mine.
I am thinking I may do some flash fiction (when I feel up to it) on here as well as continuing random memories/thoughts. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you will continue to follow here!
Gratz on staying with the challenge. I have been visiting your blog on several occasions, but as my first visit was to your C-post, I did not really know what to say.
Blogger do have (or maybe had?) a Like button functioanlity. I activated it long ago, and after a year it had not been used – you can feel very unique now 😀
On the other hand I have to type in Name, e-mail and blog address every single time I comment on a WP blog — Blogger and WP still keeps their cold war going on a low boil.
Thanks so much, sorry about the sign-in need. I had half a dozen that I followed that required that and it’s a pain but does help stop spammers. I was getting 6-12 spam comments every day!
Oh, and two more thoughts. I like your number plate … actually I like this blog much better than your old one.
And I’m happy to have found a kindred spirit concerning the A-Z graphics. I always use the alternative badges supplied by Lissa (https://postcardsfromthebookstore.blogspot.com/2025/01/seven-things-there-may-be-ramblings.html), and totally agree with your assesment of the official ones.
Thanks, I had fun making the license plate and also like that I’m not alone in being a fan of the original graphics. LOL!
Donna I liked your laid back approach to A2Z.
Aw, thank you, Lisa. I decided to keep this for challenges AND memories/rambling/thoughts.
You are welcome.
Hi Donna – Congratulations on completing the challenge! Thank you also for dropping by my blog. I agree that the number of participants this year seems significantly less compared to when I started doing the challenge in 2013. I didn’t get to visit as many blogs as I wanted to but now that the challenge is over, I get to hop over to the ones I missed. Glad you found new blogs to visit from this challenge! It’s same for me too!
It was fun, no matter how many participated. Thanks for coming by!
Congratulations on finishing all the letters! So many didn’t. I agree with the graphics. I liked the round ones. This year’s trophy was better than last year’s.
I don’t even bother with the trophy so I hadn’t looked at it. I’m a fan of the old ones… Thanks for reading and commenting, it’s much appreciated!
Congratulations on completing another (and several!) A-Z challenge(s), glad you participated! And your reflection post is already published, too. I’m still working on that.
I had fun reconnecting with you – read you soon!
I started it in the last week, then edited as needed. LOL! This was a fun year for A-Z, all the way around!
Your observations about this year’s A to Z mirror many of my own. Which reminds me, I have a “reflections” post sitting in my drafts folder that needs (?) publishing.
No blog reading for me today, headed to the movies! I’ll catch up tomorrow.