Successful Blog

Happy 4th Birthday to SOBs Everywhere!

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All Weekend It’s a Party!

Today is Successful-Blog’s fourth birthday.

happy-birthday-4

On October 24, 2005, I wrote my first blog post on Successful-blog. That week began the story and the wonderful relationships this blog has made. Some facts about what that has been:

  • That first blog post was written on WordPress 1.5.
  • The SOB Awards started the same week. Over a thousand SOB badges are out there.
  • Open Comment Night, which started on May 9, 2006, preceeded Twitter’s birth by 5 months.
  • The first SOBCon — SOBCon07 — grew from the comment box on this blog.

    • As of this writing, Successful-blog has 87,872 approved comments, over 1.6 million spams caught, 3,714 published posts, and more friends than I might ever count.

Thank you everyone who has stopped by to read, leave a thought, be a part of this blog and my life.

It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

Here’s how it works.

open mike night

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Help Celebrate!! Bring a Link! Bring a Link!

That’s right, you’re invited to bring a link to your most successful post. When you leave the link, please write a comment about how you chose the most successful post to bring.

  • Bring a link to a page, a picture, a post that demonstrates, celebrates, illuminates your success and outstanding-ness as a blogger.
  • Or bring that ebook, that manifesto, that photo, that priceless work that you want to offer as a birthday gift to everyone.

I’ll compile a list like this when the party is over.

C’mon in and get to know us! There’s free beverages and snacks in the sidebar. Join the party. See who you meet. Stay and come back again. Happy Birthday, all of you! Thank you for making what we do meaningful! –

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles
The Mic Is On: Happy 3rd Birthday to SOBs Everywhere!
2006 Birthday Party! The Mic Is On: Happy 2nd Birthday to SOBs Everywhere!

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Comments

  2. Liz,

    Congratulations on your 4-year milestone. What an accomplishment! Thanks for everything you do to build the blogging community.

    Funny thing. The post I consider my most successful one had nothing to do with marketing for small business, which is the subject of my blog.

    I wrote a post commemorating September 11 and was blown away by the reader stats and the comments. It just got everyone talking, which is what I really want to happen with my blog.

    The link:

    http://tinyurl.com/nh3xok

    Thanks again for all you do.

    Judy

    Reply

    • Hi Judy,
      I have the same feeling about my favorite posts. They’re the ones I’ve been moved to write no matter the timing or the fit to my blog.

      Looking forward to reading yours. 🙂

      Reply

  3. Hi Liz,

    Long time lurker here, first time commentator 🙂

    Congrats on the anniversary, I just celebrated 6 months of blogging and still feel like a newbie in a landscape filled with amazing bloggers like yourself!

    Without doubt I feel my best post was a tongue in cheek combination of sci-fi and freelancing in my guest post for Freelance Switch titled ‘The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Guide to Freelancing’ which you can check out here:

    http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/the-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-guide-to-freelancing/

    I feel it showcases a little of my sense of humor and my knowledge as a freelancer of 5 years now. I hope my post brings a little to the party and look forward to attending your next anniversary!

    Reply

    • Grace,
      Once you pass the 90 day mark, you’re in the mix with the rest of us bloggers — we’re all new at some things and always will be.
      I’m delighted that you’ve chosen something that features your sense of humor. Too often the overwhelming interwebs can get us to take ourselves too seriously.

      Thank you for de-lurking on this day. You’re not a stranger anymore.

      Reply

  4. Happy 4th Birthday success blog!

    The timing is uncanny as I’ve just had my travel website’s relaunch (re-birthday?) and it’s went well. We even celebrated it with a snazzy video:
    http://www.sharingtravelexperiences.com/welcome-to-the-new-sharing-travel-experiences/

    I am so bless with a wonderful and supportive readership who are my own little travel community. I couldn’t have asked for more awesome people to surround myself. They come looking to be inspired and end up inspiring others while they’re there. That’s what I call SOB.

    Andy

    Reply

  6. Happy Happy Happy Happy (that’s four times) to you and your successful blog. Here’s my favorite post – it’s a mashup. I took the list of the top 100 restaurants in the world from the Times of London. I found almost all their websites and added the urls to the list. I researched their addresses and made a Google map. I made a Flickr group and got fantastic foodie photogs to participate. BTW, your Alinea in Chicago is #10 and one of only 2 USA restaurants in the top ten.

    http://thingsyoushoulddo.com/uncategorized/100-best-restaurants-the-times-list

    Reply

  7. Liz,

    Congratulations in your fourth aniversary!
    I really enjoy your posts.
    Now, regarding your generous offer of a link to my “most successful” post, here is the link.

    http://read-y.com/?p=349

    The reason for this is that it includes a sample of my graphic humor and I am exploring a new form of presenting ideas for discussion.
    All the best!

    Reply

  10. Congratulations Liz! Your numbers are simply amazing. Over 3700 posts? Wow.

    I just shared this post at StumbleUpon and it will cascade across Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and Delicious. Tamar doesn’t like it when we do that but I want to reach everyone and most people aren’t everywhere like she is.

    Hmmm. My most successful post. Although my DoFollow post is probably most popular and I personally love my posts on evaluating ecommerce store for affiliates and how not to lose your shirt on pay per click I suspect most of your readers are bloggers so they would want to know which bloggers really make money and are good at teaching what they do.

    Thank you, Liz, for motivating me to finally write a Best of GrowMap post so my readers don’t miss my pillar content. I’m doing that right now and publishing it tonight.

    Reply

  11. Happy Birthday Liz, blog and all the SOBs of whom I am proud to be one.

    Thanks for being you, my friend and an inspiration to so many and for providing this avenue where we all connect

    Hugs accross the waves
    Suzie

    Reply

  13. Just found your blog from a Twitter link and I’ll be back! My most recent blogs are new and for musician friends so they don’t have lots of comments yet but in time. Nice to see an interesting, fun, well done blog by a really nice person! Here’s to many more years!

    Reply

  14. Congrats Liz!

    My “most successful” post, huh?

    Success for me being defined by the amount of fun I had making the post, my most successful post so far has been the Thomas Hawk Parody Song post wherein I lampooned the odd situation our mild-mannered photohero encountered during a visit to San Francisco’s Museum Of Modern Art.

    http://jugglingapples.com/?p=107

    Reply

  16. Yay, Liz!

    Happy Birthday!

    That’s all I came by to say. Until I read Andy’s comment (congrats, Andy!) I didn’t realize you wanted me to dig through my archives before I’ve had my caffeine. I’ll go rummage then come back.

    I’ve been reading here… for about as long as I’ve been writing my blog, which means for half of your site’s existence, and I have to say, you keep getting better and better. You dig into the meaning of success for businesses and bloggers in a vital and inspiring way.

    I love blog birthdays. And I love when you do open mic on the weekend… I’m awful at Tuesdays. 🙂

    Here’s to your next four years. Cheers!

    Regards,

    Kelly

    Reply

  17. OK, I’m back faster than expected. I was going to sit, and ponder the meaning of success, and scroll for one that got a great discussion going, which is one of the ways I know a post’s been successful. That’s one of the greatest delights for me at MCE.

    Then I realized that the point of every word, right since the beginning, has been to make a difference in small business owners’ lives. I send every post out with that smile of hope crinkling the corners of my eyes. (Okay, maybe not the rants but those are rare, lol.)

    I recently wrote one, floated with that hope as usual, where I got fewer comments than I like to… maybe it seemed too scary, too real, too difficult to some (funny, the title says it’s Easy…)—but in the comments I got, was a reader who let the whole point of the article seep in and who really used it to redirect his business.

    How easy? He did it all in the same day I posted it.

    Now I’d been hoping to do that for 26,004 readers, but one beautiful whoop of reader-success at a time is how it works. And that made a successful and outstanding post to me.

    One Easy Way To Find Out What Your Customers Know About Your Sales

    Thanks, Liz. You always make me think.

    Until later,

    Kelly

    Reply

  18. “Tamar doesn’t like it when we do that but I want to reach everyone and most people aren’t everywhere like she is.”

    Actually, cross-pollination is never a bad thing. My big concern is using Ping.fm to merely broadcast messages (not so much links) and not being able to follow the conversation, let alone respond to it. I think that’s messy and wanting to be everywhere when you can’t. But sharing links via Stumble, Delicious, etc is different, usually. It gives the content potential for lots of traffic.

    And Liz, you rock. Happy birthday! 🙂

    Reply

  19. Hi Birthday girl!

    (and again this year your blog’s birthday made me realise that I’d forgotten my own blog’s “birthday”! – Oct 2006, always one year younger)

    When I read this today I dived into the archives and refound one of the IMHO most exhilarating blog posts and lively conversations in the comment box ever:
    https://www.successful-blog.com/motivation/personal-identity-what-is-humility/

    Have a great day!

    Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

    Reply

  20. Hey Liz,
    How did I ever miss THIS Blog’s B-Day???
    For that matter, How did I miss my own Blog’s B-Day? 🙂
    All the best and you’ll be seeing more of me. And that’s a Threat Promise!
    Happy Blog B-Day to you
    Happy Blog B-Day to you
    Happy Blog B-Day Successful Blooogggg (AND LIZ)
    Happy Blog B-Day to YYyOOOOoouuuu.
    XOXOXO

    Reply

  21. Happy Birthday and congratulation on four great years! I look forward to many more years of your reading your blog entries.

    It’s an interesting question that you present, “what is your most successful blog post?” How do we measure success in the blogosphere? Is it by the number of comments and trackbacks? Possibly it’s just the post that the author is most proud of writing. It could be the post that influenced those around us without even knowing it. The definition of “successful post” has a different meaning to each of us.

    To me, I would have to say that my most successful post is entitled “Attempted Poetry” it’s the first poem I wrote and publicly posted on my blog. The post that can be found at http://brurls.com/ju2ro2 is a poetic version of how I live my life. Although my blog is about my life, support social causes, my ambitions I believe the poetry is what speaks to me most. There is something about writing poems that say so much with so little writing.

    I’ll leave you with this, have a great blog birthday and congratulations again.

    Reply

  22. Liz,
    Happy Blog Birthday! You have given a lot of gifts to people here. Thanks so much for sharing. You have encouraged me to go for it. Just do it or don’t do it. Thank you.

    My best post so far (based on passion) is this one: http://is.gd/4BmSE

    Cheers to Liz and this community!

    Reply

  23. Happy 4th Blogday, Liz! You remain the Blogger Extraordinaraire.

    Although I stopped by yesterday, I was stumped on which blog post to share as my most successful post. How is the success of posts measured? My mind went totally blank, which, you know, is rare.

    Last night, while Watching tv in bed because I was too dead to even move, one post rose to the surface of consciousness.

    It is a post about a lesson taught by a wise friend; a lesson I still hold dear today. Every time I implement the lesson, I feel my wise friend sitting on my shoulder, reassuring nodding with warmth and approval, “It’s not about you; it’s about them. Say thank you and accept their words graciously.”

    In social media, where it is all about “them”, it may be strange that I chose a post in which “I” learn a valuable lesson as my most successful post. But, this lesson has better equipped me to interact with my readers, friends and colleagues, both online and in-person. Isn’t that a success?

    The lesson? How to respond to the remark “You’re such an inspiration!” Check it out at http://www.doitmyselfblog.com/2008/inspiring-others/

    Thanks Liz for all who you are and all that you do for others. I’m sure your Dad is proud.

    Cheers to you, Liz!

    Reply

  24. Liz, congratulations! You’ve put in so much work, and you’ve touched so many lives. This makes me think your most successful post was your first. Imagine what we would all have missed if you had never stepped out to make that first post.

    My most successful post is one I wrote for a friend. Chris was asking me for advice on starting a business, and I was rattling of facts and items to remember. Finally, he asked, “Is there a checklist for all this?” So I wrote one: http://www.smallbizsurvival.com/2008/03/checklists-for-starting-your-first.html Chris mentioned it on his blog, and then LifeHacker noticed it there. Now it has been viewed more than 19,000 times. I like to think some of those people have felt just a bit better prepared when going into business.

    And I’m just one of the many people you’ve touched. Imagine all the ways your work has spread, making the world a better place.

    Reply

  27. Happy 4th Blog Anniversary! And here’s to many, many more to read! I’m blessed to know you, Liz and am always in awe of all that you do and accomplish.

    My most amazing post was the one about Steak ‘n Shake and how they denied service at the drive thru. Since we’ve made our peace about that and they’ve made a few changes, I can no longer link to it but it was definitely a blog post that rocked the drive-thru industry.

    Reply

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