Number of Images

2002 - 762 photoshopped images
2003 - 379 photoshopped images
2004 - 498 photoshopped images

Looks like I'm getting back on track in the photoshopping game, but many of you will have noticed that - since about mid-2003 - there's been far less nonsense and far more comment in these pictures. In fact, many of these pictures were created as part of a campaign or part of a Flash show that was part of a campaign.

Picture Of The Year has to be this one of Tony Blair. A close second is this one of George W. Bush. Thanks to the mighty Rasterbator, I was able to do giant versions of these and other images and put them on display during the Peace March in erm, March (see images here, here and here).

There's also a range of images that I've produced over the last few weeks that I'm not allowed to show you yet. These are even better. Hang in there.

Number of Visitors

2002 - 101,302 unique visitors to the core weblog
2003 - 294,442 unique visitors to the core weblog
2004 - 449,201 unique visitors to the core weblog

On an average weekday, the core weblog reaches 1200-1700 people. Peak traffic hasn't reached the dizzy heights of 15,000 in a day (reached in early 2003) but there have been more peaks at about the 7,000-8,000 people/day mark. Three notable peaks were:

- July 7th (8,871 unique visitors) when The Parting Shot was doing the rounds and I popped my head up to make one important post.
- September 1st (7,002 unique visitors) following the release of the Page 3 page and during the RNC.
- September 20th (6,703 unique visitors) following the release of Something Funny Happened On The Way To Abu Ghraib and the day Boris made his first post.

The Army of the Core Faithful - visiting every weekday without fail, usually more than once - has grown in number from 90 (in 2002) to well over 200 (in 2003) to just over 300 in 2004.

As usual, daily peaks took place at around 09:30-10:00 GMT when the bulk of bloggage goes live (but this may change as I get a little looser with the freedom of MT) and just after 13:00 GMT when lunchtime kicks in here in the UK and folks start to wake up over in America.

Last year there were approximately 500 unique visitors who accessed the site via the gsi.gov.uk or parliament.uk servers. This year, there was roughly the same number of visitors from gsi.gov.uk but - overall - there were 1,892 unique visitors who work for the US/UK government and 1,782 unique visitors who work for the US military.

Referrers

The biggest referrer last year was Google (with the most popular search query being 'mustard man', closely followed by a series of queries relating to Tony Blair's email address and then 'star wars'). Fark.com and B3ta.com followed. In all, there were 10,782 websites that sent traffic this way in 2003.

This year, the community site dasheep.de is the biggest referrer (62,005 referrals), thanks to a long-running feature of JPEG Baby. Google.com and Google.co.uk work together to come a close second with 59,158 referrals (compared to 29,362 in 2003). Other notable referrers include Bored at Work, Milk and Cookies, Masturbate for Peace and B3ta.

The Top 10 search queries of the year were:
mustard man
bum
page 3 girls
star wars
south west trains
viral marketing
jpeg
star wars images
bbc
religion

2002 Projects

In 2002, a few campaigns and fun pages were cut loose, including Can Weblogs Reach Ronald Scelson?, which reached 16,994 people in that year. The M*A*S*H Quiz - which reached 45,231 people in 2002 and 37,788 people in 2003 - reached yet another 32,940 people in 2004.

2003 projects

JPEG Baby reached 93,745 people in 2003. This year, it reached 148,892. A significant climb that proves it has staying power. And still no record deal. Ho-hum.

The Star Wars Photoshopping Project reached 42,279 people in 2003 and 50,103 in 2004.

Tony Blair's Email Address didn't fare quite as well, as visitor numbers plunged from 51,946 in 2003 to under 5,000 in 2004. Still, its work is done. Bare Your Bum at Bush also went from 'active' to 'archive' (down from 50,780 to 17,964).

Top Projects from 2004

The Happy Poster Project
60,863 unique visitors
Sure, it looks harmless, but if you actually try to put a poster up in a shop window that has no commercial or political purpose, you're bound to discover several interesting things about the 'local' businesses in your High Street. The page is currently 7th in Google.co.uk for the single search query 'happy' and 3rd for 'poster'.

Page 3 - Model Propaganda: The Sun, The Girls, The Truth
40,137 unique visitors
Currently 3rd in Google for 'page 3 girls' and enjoying all sorts of juicy model-specific searches. Its purpose is clear and it's out there doing its job on a daily basis.

I Believe In The BBC
38,544 unique visitors
This is more of an archived campaign. For the most part it's a time capsule of the moment when the BBC was vulnerable and the people saw fit to stand up and defend it. But it now also serves as an excellent reference point for anybody searching for information relating to Rupert Murdoch and why he is so hostile toward the BBC.

Also... in 2003 I launched the first weblog by a Labour MP, and in 2004 I launched the first weblog by a Conservative MP.

Boris Johnson
28,717 unique visitors
Boris is obviously a busy man, but a lot of his article content is now driven through the blog, allowing people to comment on it, and Melissa is great at taking up the slack. Normally, posts by staff would be sneered at, but Melissa made her bones when the whole Liverpool thing exploded. Speaking of that and other matters, I'm willing to bet that - had Boris known what was coming - there is no way he would have approved of a website that allowed comments from web users... but just look at what happened. Feedback during both incidents was overwhelmingly positive. Hooray for Boris, and hooray for weblogs.

That's it for this year. Still no front page, still no novel, still no record deal, and I'm only 3 chapters into my SEO book. But just you wait until next year....