In the Audience

To create a blog or website based largely on personal promotion and the ability to share your work is something done with a great deal of optimism. We hope someone will care, will read, will watch. And as views start to trickle in in those first few months you begin to find a target audience and a couple of people who continue to come back to check out your latest posts.

Editing Luke took a lot of work to get off the ground over 3 years ago, and while I still see a lot of work to be done in this project, there have been some pretty incredible milestones along the way. To discover that people are voluntarily coming to see your original content is the dream of any artist/filmmaker/blogger/etc. Now just shy of 100,000 blog views (and over 1 million video views) I wanted to share some of the details about the audience that has viewed Editing Luke since it was created in 2007.

At the time of this post this site has been viewed in 150 countries in over 6700 cities around the world. Not surprisingly given my content and location, over half of all my visitors have come from Canada and the United States (roughly 52%). I've always been writing my blog in Canada, so it's also not surprising that my readership has been much higher in the provinces that I've lived, I've written about, and have close friends in.



North American Cities (above) - In this map the cities with the highest number of total views since this blog was created are shown. My hometown of Medicine Hat is the largest dot.



United States (above) - Here the top 10 states with the highest number of visits have been ranked. California and New York have a significant lead over the others, which given my travel posts and film student/related content (not to mention the population of those states) seems on target.



Europe (above) - This map shows the percentage of all visits to Editing Luke that have come from these specific regions of Europe. Off all these countries, the UK has the largest single contribution with 3.77% of all traffic to my site.



The World (above) - Finally, this map shows the density of visits from around the world and select percentages of some of the more popular locations where people come from. The darker the color the more visits. You can see that North America has a substantial lead, but there are also strong pockets of viewership from Southeast Asia and Europe. The beige countries represent no views from those locations - a few people have actually visited from Greenland though!

It still amazes me that so many strangers could be viewing my site sometimes, but it feels incredible to know that I've been able to create something from my experiences to share. Often you doubt that anyone is reading, but if this is just the beginning of things to come who knows what the numbers will say in another 3 years?

I guess I'll have to keep working at it to find out. Thanks for visiting from your part of the world!

Biggest Little City in the World | Reno, Nevada

A pocket of population in the high desert, Reno truly is the Biggest Little City in the World. It's a slice of Nevada culture without the grandeur of that other popular gambling city to the south. Chalk full of its own character and quirks, there's something special here that we only got a brief taste of. On the long road back to Canada, we had started the morning in San Francisco and pulled into Reno in the early afternoon.

Dave and I took to exploring downtown and crossed under the famous Reno arch. Welcome to "the Biggest Little City in the World". To me, neon signs always look naked during the day without the glow to complete the package, but they were cool nonetheless. Smaller, less imposing casinos stretched around several streets, many mimicking their Vegas counterparts.

Reno certainly has its own vibe, and despite being an obvious gambling town, it felt a lot different than cruising in Las Vegas. There was more of a local personality about it. It didn't feel like everyone was a tourist, and on top of that, it's pretty secluded from everywhere else. Maybe it was just the harsh light of midday taking some of the fantasy out of the scene, but surprisingly I didn't even feel swayed to gamble. Instead, we pushed onward to Salt Lake City.

Inspired Singles: Gimme Shelter

Issue 12: Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones

This notable track from the Stones' 1969 album, Let it Bleed is fueled with a distinctly urban and raw sound. I always think of a 70's era cop drama when I hear it - it may have also been in a Scorsese movie (the Departed?).

To me this is a quintessential Rolling Stones track, in that it seems almost improvised, slightly chaotic, with a great hook and a lot of energy. I've had the pleasure of seeing the Rolling Stones twice in concert and that has pretty much solidified my appreciation for the group's iconic status. Gimme Shelter, and the entire album for that matter, is required listening for anyone with an interest in rock music. It pulls you in, tells a story, and has you singing along even when you don't know the words.

You don't have to take my word for it though. Rolling Stone magazine placed Gimme Shelter at #38 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.