Diverse Tech Geek 2020 year in review

Updated on December 22, 2021

Regardless of all that’s happened this year, it’s time once again to look back over how the blog fared in 2020.

The top 10 posts for 2020

Women with laptops — “wocintech (microsoft) – 58” by wocintechchat.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (Flickr / cropped from original)

Below are the top 10 posts written in 2020. The ranking data’s cobbled together from Google Analytics and Matomo, since several months ago I switched to the former (again). The information is as of December 27, 2020.

Observations

By far the most popular 2020-written post this year was my look at the best selling graphic novels in July, which included Jerry Craft’s “New Kid.” (The post got some attention on Twitter.)

For that matter, graphic novel related posts also took up several other spots on the top 10, including my annual favorite graphic novels post. I think I made the right move in switching from writing about floppies to graphic novels after the Diamond shutdown earlier this year. Said shutdown also pointed out most of the flaws with the direct market (and single issue comics).

Streaming services also are still a popular topic. 2020 saw plenty of changes there, between more services debuting (HBO Max, Peacock, etc.) and stay-at-home pandemic orders leading to more people watching TV.

As for the remaining few top 10 spots, copyright and the public domain are still popular topics. “Johnny Test”‘s return is yet another example of Hollywood’s ongoing reboot obsession. “Hero Elementary” is a cute new PBS cartoon, and an interesting example of a superhero parody aimed at young kids. (It’s set in a world where the top heroes include pastiches of the Rocketeer/Adam Strange and a heroic Captain Cold…)

2020 blog highlights

WordPress — Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk / Unsplash

Looking back at what’s happened on the blog over 2020:

After spending a year using ClassicPress (a WordPress fork), I decided to move away from the WordPress-related ecosystem entirely. In late August, I switched to Ghost, a newer content management system. Ghost emphasizes a lighter, more blogging-focused experience over WordPress’ everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. So far, everything’s going OK, though finding replacements for a few WordPress functions, such as comments, has been tough. For comments, as of this writing I’m trying out Facebook Comments. While Facebook is, well, Facebook, all the other third party comment systems I’ve tried are buggy, expensive, too difficult to install/manage, or have some negative aspect (privacy issues, etc.). The other alternative’s no comments at all (and directing readers to comment on social media), which also isn’t ideal.
August also brought about a few other changes. I brought back a new version of my Facebook page, and revived my Instagram account. Again, while I’m still not fond of Mark Zuckerberg’s products, they unfortunately aren’t going anywhere (antitrust lawsuits notwithstanding). I also switched from blogging three times a week to the current twice a week schedule (Tuesdays and Fridays). So far, it’s been less work trying to think up newer blog posts; I also hope the resulting posts are higher quality ones.
In July, I pondered the future of both my blog and blogging in general. Basically, it feels like there’s been a big shift to audio/video (podcasts, YouTube, Twitch, etc.) over plain text-based blogging. There’s also been a shift away from the open web/open standards (RSS, etc.) to closed platforms (social networks, apps, etc.). I also pondered whether I need to “modernize” this blog somehow.
Finally, the blog turned 10 years old this year. Once again, thanks to all my readers for supporting my blogging efforts!