Huckleberries Online

DFO: It Was A Very Good Year

Posted by DFO

Dec. 22, 2009 2:54 p.m. • 8 comments

Despite the continuing struggles of the newspaper business to stay afloat, I’d have to put 2009 into the win column here at Huckleberries Online. It didn’t start that way, of course. As a result of the switch to a new system for S-R blogs, Huckleberries lost about 40 percent of its traffic, for a variety of reasons. The blog spent much of the early part of the year catching up to the big daily numbers that it had in 2007 and 2008. HBO topped 2 million page-views last week and is ending the fourth quarter on a pace for 2.5M. More than ever, Huckleberries today resembles the kind of cyber place that I envisioned when I started this experiment almost 6 years ago. On a coupla occasions during the second half of the year, I divided comments among conservatives, liberals, and neutrals, and took polls to calculate the political balance of the blog. It couldn’t be more balanced. Huckleberries has become a place where almost everyone is accepted and respected despite a wide range of political, religious, and philosophical views. Things can still get rough in the comments section. But nothing like the old days. We’ve come a long ways, Berry Pickers. But we have a ways to go yet. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year/DFO.

Question: Any well wishes you want to give other Berry Pickers here?

Eight comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Phaedrus on December 22 at 3:22 p.m.
Don Sausser a pain free year.
Marmie, the same.
JBelle a chance to get out of her closet and see the world
nic casey children that sleep well and don’t vomit
LarrySpencer a heart
mike_s perspective
Taryn, heat
Sisyphus, the same as Don and Marmie
MikeK 15 more votes
Nick Adams a Fiesta Bowl victory
hmoffsuite a release from his ODS and a couple of documented workers
JeannieS good health and employment
DFO, more years at the helm
kage_mann, Strunk & White’s
DFO on December 22 at 3:25 p.m.
@ Phaedrus; you, some of the other Berry Pickers, and I should form a search team and see what has become of Kage_Mann. He’s been missing in action for some time.
Sam on December 22 at 3:35 p.m.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
hmoffsuite on December 22 at 3:47 p.m.
Phaedrus. Very touching. :~) Enjoyed it. And I really do wish the best to all HBO people. Sis, Spoke, Pheadrus and I go at it pretty good some times. But even in disagreement, I appreciate your intelligence and banter. I have changed my thinking on a few things from these exchanges and think this is a great blog. Thank you, DFO, for providing it for us.
mike_s on December 22 at 4:18 p.m.
Phaedrus, what you are looking for, I’ve already found.
JohnA on December 22 at 5:22 p.m.
To Dave, and to all the merry hucksters, from Deena and I, here’s wishing you a blessed and joyful Christmas and fruitful new year.

Deena has a saying: ‘Friends are the family you choose’.

We have a nice family here at HBO. Thanks to you all.
bpoole on December 22 at 6:46 p.m.
I wish you all the best. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
wheels on December 23 at 8:55 a.m.
Mery Xmas to ALL HBOers.May the holidays bring U peace.Since there’s no snow here and Crystal Mtn has it all we’ll be headed that way.HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

« Back to Huckleberries Online

You must be logged in to post comments.
Please create a profile or log in here.

About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.