To be honest, I don’t know if I have the oldest blog in the world, but until someone else can prove that theirs has been around longer, I’m going to assume it’s me. I’m not usually a pat me on the back, “look at me, look at me” kind of person, but c’mon, it’s my blogs 11th birthday! Indulge me a little. I think 11 blog years is like 110 in people years.
Some who have doubted my claim as the longest running blog in the world have asked me, “If your blog has been running for 11 years, why don’t you have more followers?” Fair point. Here’s my story: I started blogging in January of 2005. I wrote a fantasy sports blog. That one ran for about 3 months until two things happened. The first was that I got hired by a fantasy sports website to write for them. The other thing that happened caused the birth of The Phil Factor.
I was hanging around the office of my day job being a smart ass about something (I know, hard to believe, right?) when a secretary named Erin said to me, “That’s pretty funny. You should blog about that.” So I did, but the first Phil Factor was on Blogger. I blogged on Blogger for 6 years. Then I went to a blogging platform called Posterous, which was one of the first to allow you to share your blog posts to Facebook, Twitter, and other places with just a click of the mouse. After two years on Posterous, the blogging website closed, and that was why in the Spring of 2013 I moved here to WordPress and met all of you wonderful people.
If you want to read it, here’s the link to the first Phil Factor post ever from April 2, 2005. I made fun of American Idol, which was in year four then. It’s now wrapping up it’s 15th and final season. I’ve blogged through two American Presidents and three Popes. One of my first posts was about Pope John Paul II passing away and my desire to be elected next Pope. My blog began before the show How I Met Your Mother came on the air. In September 2005 when Barney Stinson said, “This is SO going on my blog!” I was thrilled that my odd little hobby had been validated. Here is a picture from my old Blogger site proving that I’ve been blogging since April 2, 2005: (Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the pic to see that I posted 134 times in 2005)
Yes, I was a little light on the posts in 2010. I was kind of busy. Also, some posts have been deleted for various reasons, including that some were included in my book 50 Shades of Phil, which includes the best fifty posts from my first eight years of blogging. If you have a Kindle, Nook, or just a Kindle app on your device, that e-book is the best 99 cents you’ll ever spend. Funny 500-600 word essays are perfect for passing the time when you’re in a doctor’s waiting room, on the subway, or on the porcelain throne.
Here’s another interesting Phil Factor fact: In 2011 The Phil Factor was also hosted on the website of Perky Jerky under the title of The Sarcastic Jerk. I should have stuck with them. A fun company and their beef and turkey jerky is delicious. They sent me a box full of it.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Sorry about the self-indulgent post. I’ll return to my usualy idiocy in future posts. Have a great weekend! ~Phil