Below is an accounting for the net amount (after PayPal deducted their transaction fees) of donations received via PayPal so far this year.
Last month saw the 4th anniversary of my beginning to to edit the
Alex Jones Show for distribution via the bit torrent system. On the 28th of next month this blog will be three years old. When such milestones come along, I suppose it's natural to both look backward and look forward.
Looking backward informs decision about what direction to choose for going forward. I would look back in an attempt to see how well I am doing in achieving my objective. One might call that objective, to "get the word out"... to help wake people up and to place tools in the hands of the already awake. Obviously, there's no way to directly quantify that. I can count "unique visits" and "page views" on the blog, but I suspect many people use browser add-ons to block trackers that calculate those metrics. I do. Also, a fair amount of distribution takes place in the bit torrent system where I have no way of even estimating how many times a torrent is downloaded. Unfortunately the only direct measurement I have is financial contributions to the blog as a show of support for it.
Counting dollars is a flawed measurement of success for a lot of reasons. There's no doubt that a lot of blog users are in a situation where they just can't afford to donate. I know that situation very well. But these are real numbers rather than estimate or extrapolations, and they do show a trend. During 2010 it was not until the last four months that I was set up to receive money through PayPal, so that year's monthly average is based on 4 months rather than 12.
Having said that, this is how things have been going.
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