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June 1, 2006 : 40 Small Thank-Yous
I started to track the statistics for the web site in early 2003. In the first full month with stats, February 2003, the unique web site visitors that month reached just over 3000.
40 months later, the number topped 275 000 for the month of May 2006. Roughly a quarter million people had some sort of interaction with the UBC Botanical Garden's web site last month.
The reason why it has had such phenomenal success is you. Without the seemingly tireless effort by (and inexhaustible patience of) people on the forums, the commenters on Botany Photo of the Day who share their personal thoughts & stories and the folks who help spread the word about the site, this place would be only a shadow of what it is.
Instead of posting a big “thank-you” and being self-congratulatory, I thought the best way of saying thanks is by making 40 small improvements to the web site over the next two months that somehow benefit you (depending on what you use on the site, of course). No, I don't have a list of all forty things, but I do know that I want to make the site a bit easier to use, increase the content on the site and make it somewhat more appealing. If you have ideas for improvement (or want to share what really frustrates you!), drop me an email, comment, or post on the forums.
I'll be cataloguing the “forty small thank-yous” in this weblog as I institute them.
Cheers!
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at June 1, 2006 1:44 AM
Comments
Posted by: Maureen at June 1, 2006 7:08 AM
What an interesting idea. I'll be looking forward to seeing the changes, although I'm not sure I have any good ideas on how to improve the site. I'll think harder about this now.
Posted by: Jeremy Cherfas at June 1, 2006 7:30 AM
Just a note, many times I have forwarded your pictures to plant or photo loving friends of mine, so add that to your count. I love the site just as it is, can't even imagine it any better. I'll be watching. JB
Posted by: Judy Blevins at June 1, 2006 7:48 AM
I love your site! I'm on it everyday and share it with friends when I see something that a particular person would enjoy. Your site even helped me figure out what I'd like to do with my life-I so look forward to reading your entries and learning about new plants that I decided to look into finding a career that lets me work with plants. I'll be starting a master's degree in the fall in landscape architecture.
The only improvement I can think of would be a way to make the widget larger without necessarily opening the website, but I'm not sure that's how widgets work.
Thank you for your hard work putting together such an interesting site!
Posted by: Jen at June 1, 2006 12:41 PM
I would like you to leave a space after the url for the photo of the day so that AOL customers can just click through. The cutting and pasting is inconvenient. I find that in my own AOL emails just adding a space after an url will make it active.
But I love your site and the photos are spectacular. I have recommended it to others as well.
Posted by: Karen Vaughan, L.Ac. at June 1, 2006 3:38 PM
What everyone else said: thank YOU.
Posted by: Bill Hooker at June 1, 2006 7:24 PM
I click on this widget everyday and save the pictures to either my desktop folder or a botany folder--I feel like I am a virtual collector! Keep up the good work, I really enjoy both the pictures and the additional links you provide.
Posted by: Allison Kendrick at June 1, 2006 9:24 PM
Thanks to all of you for the kind words.
Posted by: Daniel Mosquin 
at June 2, 2006 12:14 AM
Please share your comments about the write-up and any accompanying photographs. Telling a story about the subject of the write-up is also much appreciated! If you have a gardening question, the best place to ask is on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums. Thank you!
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UBC Botanical Garden Blog is a project of the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, located in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. UBC BGCPR is a department within the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at The University of British Columbia.
Daniel, I'd like to give you 40 large thank-yous for all the energy, thought, creativity and time you put into not only creating UBC's Botanical Garden websites ... but also what you put into maintaining and improving it. We should be the ones thanking you! Good luck with the future of BPotD and the rest of the site!