Two Years and Counting

Today, January 18th, is the second anniversary of Digital Doorway. These twenty-four months have delivered to me a golden opportunity to use the open book of the Web to splash my thoughts upon a screen and instantly broadcast them to the world. One year ago, I expressed surprise that DD has lasted twelve months. Now I can say with certainty that I would have been shocked had it not reached the ripe old age of two.

Statistically speaking, StatCounter tells me that Digital Doorway has now amassed over 37,000 hits in its lifetime, with most months seeing more than 1000 hits each. I have gratefully become a regular contributor to both Grand Rounds and Change of Shift, two wonderful blog carnivals which consistently offer the best of medical, nursing, allied health, and patient blogging. Digital Doorway has been featured in several on-line articles about nurse bloggers, and was recently nominated for "Best Literary Medical Blog" in the 2006 Medical WebBlog Awards, a humbling development, to say the least, but the likelihood of winning is quite low based upon the stellar competition. Still, a nomination is honor enough.

Aside from recognition and popularity (which honestly are a boon to this blogger's spirits), the personal connections which blogging has fostered are the real treasures of this experience. No matter how inconsequential the uninitiated might feel they are, on-line friendships---and the kinship that develops therein---is a phenomenon of the Digital Age which is yet to truly be measured or studied, in my opinion. Relationship and community have taken on a new identity and meaning in this post-modern world, and those of us partaking of this electronic democratic experiment have reaped the benefits and rewards which are too numerous to recount.

Sadly, a "digital divide" still does exist around the world, with relatively few privileged souls having access to this smorgasbord of communication and information. Hopefully, over the years to come, that divide will be bridged and more people will be allowed to have the same experience as their fellow citizens. Of this I remain quite conscious.

For the forseeable future, I can imagine no end to my blogging and sharing in this most gratifying of venues. My other two blogs have been born of my desire to share my thoughts and creative aspirations in varying ways, and I hope that those two sites also continue to flourish until their time naturally comes to an end.

Being the creator of something that to me seems so alive but that truly does not exist in the physical world is an interesting notion. Whatever its manner of being, I am fully satisfied with the venture, have every intention to continue, and again thank my beloved brother Ken for being the impetus for my naive beginning of this strange and wonderful journey of self-discovery.