Bob Dylan, the “Fockers” and Brinco Shoes: The Weblog Year in Review
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 12.23.05 | 2:15 PM ET
One way to drive traffic to a website is to write about sex. Or Paris Hilton. Or, as our travel gossip columnist Theodore Fez did here, both at the same time. But we’ve pored over our visitor statistics in recent days, and we’re happy to report that our item about that other Paris didn’t even rank near the top of our most read weblog items this year. The readers of this weblog usually turned out for more worldly items, like this one about Brinco shoes, the first footwear designed for the undocumented migrant market. It has consistently been one of our highest ranking items for the last month, and it recently broke into the top five for the year.
Also ranking in the top five: an item about one writer’s quest to follow the footsteps of Bob Dylan along Minnesota’s Highway 61. Dylan, it turns out, is also a pretty good travel writer himself. His 2004 memoir Chronicles: Volume One, we wrote, features at least one terrific travel writing sequence.
Many news items proved popular, but few drew more readers than this one: Southwest Airlines Boots Passenger for “Fockers” Shirt. It was almost as popular as our news brief about Jessica Smith. Let’s Go named the star of MTV’s reality show “Laguna Beach” as a spokesman, and considering the many thousands of people who stopped by World Hum to read about it, the guidebook maker has made a popular choice.
So what was the most popular blog of the year? That would be this defense of travel-show host and Food Network personality Rachael Ray. In the days before Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels debuted in August, we posted a two-paragraph item, which inspired a spirited debate about Miss Ray. Oh, do people love her and hate her. As of today, the list of comments is at 86 and growing.
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
