That's right, I said it. Down with stats. Once my contract with the text link advertiser Cyl0n Corp is over (end of this month) I am going to do two things:

1. Write a post about the advertising, aimed at those people out there who decided it would be a good idea to make snarky remarks about it.
2. Cease collecting stats on this site.

I am sure the first point is pretty straightforward, so I will talk about my rationale for point two in this post.

And please understand, this is not a rant about a given stats package, even though I have a snapshot of The Inman's work of genius Mint. No this is a rant about the mentality that can develop when you put too much (or any at all for that matter) weight on stats.

In the beginning was fun, and lo it was good

When I started this whole blogging thing, it was for one purpose and one purpose alone... to pontificate and pretend that people actually cared about what I was saying. I would post something, usually 2 - 3 times a day, and check back now and again to see if anyone had commented. Life was simple, good and fun.

Then, I got popular

Once I started getting a pretty large audience, stats became interesting. Once I started monetizing my site, they became everything. The moment I knew that money, money I needed to keep my family afloat, was directly affected by how many people thought it would be a good idea to visit my site, well things went downhill fun wise.

As I said at the opening of this little missive, I am not going to be running advertising on the site anymore after this month. Not because I feel bad about it, but because I no longer need the money. Once the current contract is over I am going to be shutting down all my stats collecting efforts and just go back to writing posts that I think are fun.

Start tracking metrics that matter

I think that a lot of us who are looked on as "experts" would do well to stop looking at stats for our sites, and start looking at how many conversations are started by our posts. Stop tracking bounces and referrers and start writing posts that you are proud of, regardless of how many new visitors it brings you.

I guess I just want to get back to when blogging was about pure, unadulterated fun. Anyone care to join me?