Early Birthday Gift: Promotion to Freshly Pressed

(This Photo is a Property of WordPress.com)

It’s been three days since I saw one of my favorite blog posts featured on the Freshly Pressed Section of WordPress’ Homepage, yet the elation is still as intense as when I first learned about it. This explains why I am blogging about it now in a hope for a cure to come.

I’ve been using blogging as a coping mechanism since I learned to do it, especially when I feel like my tires are submerged in the deep of either trouble or joy. At this point, I need to blog to get a little detachment from this elation — the cure I was talking about.

So for those who’ve congratulated me and, at the same time, asked what’s with this freshly pressed thing when I posted it on facebook, allow me to share with you the story of why I am still elated.

Almost two years ago, I started “playing” on WordPress because the then two most popular social networking sites were already added to the blocked websites of the office. My wandering mind couldn’t stand the boredom so I tried looking for a new site to use and play with. It was there that I found WordPress.com. The first post, “My Rambling Fingers”, I made talked positively about what I felt towards the office’s decision to block Facebook and Friendster. Then it went on like this was the perfect venue for my blabbermouth to do its job and for killing time.

After making less than 15 posts or entries by the first quarter of 2011, I observed that I only get very few views for this kind of endeavor. But, when I started reading the Freshly Pressed (FP) Entries on the homepage almost everyday on the same quarter, I was inspired to try my luck on it. It was there that I decided to turn this blog over a new leaf. Id est, to become a travel blog where my primary purpose is to promote the beauty of our homeland, Philippines, using my point-and-shoot cameras. This move made all the difference.

The few views I used to see on my site statistics gradually increased meeting my expectations but far less than what I perceived as “standards” for getting freshly pressed. After a few months of infantile thinking that I could make it on FP and realizing that I was overdoing the effort, I decided to just simply share my travel stories for WordPress alone. The audience, in the form of views, otherwise became secondary. I just kept on writing and sharing the pictures I thought are beautiful. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Life is really full of surprises.” That quote became so true to me when I received an email from the Editor of WordPress stating that my post, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, was promoted to Freshly Pressed last 02 September 2011. I yelled, screamed, and shouted for joy upon reading it! More so when I reached that part that says I am now part of an élite group. That alone is more than enough to make me feel elated. But there’s more to it than just being on the homepage as I still have to deal with the aftereffect up to this moment like I said.

Freshly Pressed, according to what I read from WordPress (WP), is WP’s way of highlighting posts that they think others will like where each weekday, WP select ten new blog posts for the Freshly Pressed section of the WordPress.com homepage. The select posts represent how WordPress can be used to entertain, enlighten, or inspire.

“Freshly Pressed injects you with a visceral blowback that wafts you throughout the day — and all you can do in the midst of the float is wonder if it will ever happen to you again — and what magic you might have to conjure to capture lightning a second time, a third time, a fourth… in the bottle of your blog” Urban Semiotic.

Getting promoted to Freshly Pressed truly is a major traffic win both for WordPress.com and for the blog of a particular featured post. The sudden growth of my blog which is quantified by the kind of traffic it gets (i.e. the abnormal flow of views, comments, and subscribers) is simply exhilarating. I actually got six (6) thousand views for just three days — which is something a regular blogger will gain for about 5-10 ten years of blogging based on my observation. That’s one real, BIG deal I tell you.

Let us not also forget the opportunity this blog post, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, MAY give for Philippine Tourism, specifically the Manila Ocean Park. Isn’t that something to be proud of?

The last thing is, there are only few Filipinos who make it to Freshly Pressed (FP). It’s interesting to note that there are actually 24 million bloggers in WordPress Universe as of July 2011 (Source: wikipedia). So far, the only other Filipino Blogger that I caught getting featured on FP is my favorite radio personality, Chico Garcia, of Monster Radio RX 93.1. I once thought that I need to meet what he accomplished first to gain a Freshly Pressed badge. But, the experience of being Freshly Pressed taught me that I just need to be me to get my badge. “The rest is all hard work and grindstones and luck and kismet and wishes upon falling stars — and sometimes you get what you want and it’s just what you need” Urban Semiotic.

I know I’ve probably said this a million times but I just can’t stop writing it here AGAIN:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

That goes out to WordPress, fellow bloggers, and non-bloggers who supported me on this endeavor. I hope you’ll push on supporting Stories of My Wandering Feet & Mind.

I’m a bit detached now … I think. Blogging really helps!

“Along the journey you never know where the road might surprisingly lead or where you might suddenly find yourself” Tom Vander Well.

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