Who is Matt and Why is His Blog Here After a Year?

Want to hear a little known fact? It was a year ago today that I picked up worldofmatticus.com and wrote my first blog post on my new domain. The blog actually opened a few weeks earlier but I felt like populating the place with a few things. Thanks for the post Wyn =D!

Looking back

Why did I do it? What possessed me to dedicate what time and little money I had into a personal journal that would eventually evolve into something more?

Because I had the desire to communicate. At its very essence, blogging is nothing more than you putting your thoughts out. I didn’t care if I had 5 readers or 5 million. But I had thoughts, stories and experiences that I wanted to get out there and share so that I would never forget. Believe it or not, the original inspiration for a blog originated from World of Ming (who has since moved to Game Riot).

There was such little formatting in my posts. I didn’t bother with grammar checking and spell checking. Posts were brief and to the point. I did a lot of things wrong or I felt as if though I didn’t do them well enough.

That in itself was a gift. If you can take one thing away from this blog whether you are a player, or a writer or whatever it is that you do, it is to never be afraid of failing hard. You never know what you’re capable of if you don’t try. There’s only one way to find out what will work and what doesn’t.

Goals

When I started out my blog, I knew I wasn’t just going to take it day by day. I had a long term plan in place. I knew I would be playing World of Warcraft for a long time and I set myself up for the long haul investing in 2 years worth of web hosting fees.

I contrast this with many other WoW Blogs that I know of that cropped up overnight and held their own for a while before folding (Galadria’s Holy Light, Girl Meets WoW, many others).

Some advice? If you want to make sure you keep blogging, investing time and money into it is a good way to ensure you stick with it. And I’m so glad I’ve been able to stick with it!

So what were my goals when I started out with World of Matticus? Let me share with you what went through my young and ambitious mind:

• Address common Priest issues
• Provide assistance and guidance in raids
• Advise on meaningful guild topics
• Exceed 100,000 impressions in a year
• Achieve 200 subscribers
• Have 50 people following me on Twitter
• Make 10 bucks from advertising to pay off the domain name

Achievements

What was I able to achieve? I not only met my targets, I exceeded them well past my initial expectations.

• Addressed common healer issues
• Provided detailed healing strategy on numerous raid encounters
• Wrote about handling typical guild affairs and business
• Reached 530,000+ impressions
• Over 600 subscribers
• Followed by over 150 way smarter individuals than I (on Twitter)
• Made $310 to cover all of my blog expenses (and a school text book! Thanks guys!)

Was that the end? Nope, not at all! More fun and unexpected events happened!

The Unexpected

I launched a tiny little forum that is growing little by little every day (Hoping to hit 700 registered users by New Years and 2000 after 1 year).

Some monkey at WoW Insider thought that the stuff I was writing was worth having. As a result, I was brutally kidnapped, tortured, held at Wand point hired to help them pen their Priest column on a weekly basis (even though I’ve been abysmally inefficient and irregular about it).

Bre and Fim graciously invited me to appear on one of their early Twisted Nether blogcasts for which I am eternally grateful. I had so much fun on that show just chatting with them on the air (and off the air)!

Future ambitions

Now, do not mistake the recent slowdown of personally written posts as retirement contemplation. I’ll admit that thought has crossed my mind on multiple occasions. But I’ve been corporate America’s number 1 enemy for a long time. Ever corporate firewall needs a worthy foe and you know what? Matticus is that foe. I am committed to wasting 5 minutes of WoW players disguised as office workers for another year per day! In fact, I will see my own 5 minutes and raise it to 7!

Rest assured Azeroth, Matticus and Wynthea will be at the front line Smiting and Healing our way through Northrend and when we will do our absolute best in the advancement of restorative knowledge and Holy techniques so that everyone will benefit.

Video Blog

TJ started it with TJ TV. Saresa has begun experimenting with it (and she is one hot tamale, yes indeed)! The episodes of Matticus will begin to air sometime late August/early September. Who the heck knows what they’ll be filled with?

Podcast

Wyn and I intend to try and get our feet wet with podcasting. Expect that to come up fairly soon as well. Although I doubt we’ll be able to match the production standards and qualities of Twisted Nether, I’d like to at least try and push the two of them beyond and make them excel harder. Of course, like Adam Savage says, failure is always an option!

Matticus 3.0

It took me a good month to get this current layout operational and up to my (personal) standards. Design, coding and construction will begin on the 3rd version of World of Matticus. I’m hesitant to give a date because I know I’ll never meet it. But let’s for now say a tentative early Winter. Actually, it’s also going to depend on when Wrath debuts.

3rd Writer

The search is still on! I’ve received many submissions! Choosing them is going to be quite a task and it’s not something to be envied with this many enthusiastic under-bloggers! There is still time left if you want to try your luck (or even send it a second one just for fun)!.

Interesting stats

Now, I’m not doing this to toot my own horn. I’m doing this to deliver a message to any and all aspiring WoW Bloggers. These are WordPress page impressions for the entire year that my blog has been around. To the young blogger starting out, I was once like you. I too had 600 visitors a month. I, too had 50 visitors a day. I too experienced pains where I thought I’d written a brilliant post only to face disappointment at finding zero comments (and I still DO experience that even now).

I’ve been there. And I’m urging you not to give up. You can get readers and fans. There are people that will genuinely be interested in what you have to say and what your thoughts are. It doesn’t matter whether your interest is in PvP, or raiding, or RPing. What matters is that you keep writing. You can use whatever blogging techniques you want with SEO optimization, and other blogger mumbo jumbo. But at the end of the day, readers will reward your perseverance. It may not be now, it may not be later but it will happen. You have to stick with it. When you’re blogging, you’re grinding reputation with all of the Internet.

(Note: For those interested, I do use Google Analytics and Woopra but those were installed way later. Yes, traffic levels are around the same)

Due credit must be given

Phaelia – A wonderful druid and a wonderful blogger. I am truly humbled to be able to have the opportunity to have gotten to know Phae. Another little known fact? Phae proved instrumental in the coding scheme and of the blog. If it weren’t for her assistance, this blog would look incredibly different.

TJ – For openly admitting on BA chat that she would consider going out with me (I have it on screenshots). I’ve never met a more finer spirit. Even though she is a New Jersey Devils fan. But I guess nobody’s perfect.

Big Bear Butt – Would not be a WoW Insider columnist without his encouragement. It is my intention to one day help him format his posts and make it look purdy. At least for a day or a week. I must be getting old. Or it must be my Asian eyes. I think I need better glasses. 

Blog Azeroth homies – You guys know who you are. You are all for real (for real). Thanks for just putting up with me in general!

Wynthea – And last but absolutely in no way least, my dearest Wynthea. She deserves a medal for some of the behind the scenes stuff as well as her work she’s done. She has always been free to leave and pursue her own projects at any time but has decided to spend it here and help contribute to the blog.

To you, the reader, the subscriber – I don’t know when you started reading the blog or how you got here (and that would actually make a very good poll question in general as to what on earth drove you here), but it’s not often that I find myself at a loss for words. Your viewership, your comments, your support, agreements, disagreements, arguments, emails, and everything. It’s unbelievable and I am incredibly humbled. Back to what I wrote earlier, I hope many of the current younger bloggers will stick around and get a chance to experience the same feeling one day.