Six

FlowingData turned six years old last week. I didn’t realize it until after though as I flipped through my calendar. I missed its birthday last year too, and to my surprise, the last time I remembered was its third year. I suddenly feel like a parent who’s forgotten his child’s birthday. I don’t feel that bad though, because well, it’s a blog, not a human being. If anything it’s an extension of me, and I lost track of my age a couple of years ago.

Still though, six years is a long time on the internet.

FlowingData started as a personal site to document projects related to my early-stage research and then grew into something more. Somewhere along the timeline and over 3,000 posts and a couple of books later, it became my full-time job, which is pretty cool. The internet is awesome.

Thanks to all the sponsors over the years who helped me pay for the ever-increasing hosting bills, and a big thank you to everyone who reads and shares. And of course, thank you to those who bought books and became members. Your support is huge.

This year on FlowingData will be different from all other years of its existence, because it will be the first year that I don’t have to work on my dissertation. With these new found hours in the day, in addition to more tutorials for members, I hope to spend more time with analysis on interesting datasets and to improve my visualization skills, especially of the interactive variety. Hopefully that transfers to more interesting stuff here on FlowingData.

Six good years. The best years are ahead.

9 Comments

  • Congratulations! Six years is a lifetime in internet years. This is one of my favorite #dataviz blogs out there.

  • Mihir Iyer July 1, 2013 at 9:21 am

    Congrats! I’ve learned a lot from you in the last couple years. Thanks a lot.

  • Guilhes Damian July 1, 2013 at 9:43 am

    Congrats and continue the excellent work! And thank you so much for share your knowledge : )

  • Congratulations, Nathan! Your site remains a node of reason within the wild world of dataviz. Six years? That’s off the charts! (ba-dum-bum)–Linda

  • Richard Hackathorn July 1, 2013 at 10:29 am

    Congratulations!!! You done good… :) So, where to now that the dissertation is completed, finished, over, through, past… ?

  • Congratulations! I remember a couple of years ago when I feel for your April Fool’s prank that you were stopping FlowingData. I sent condolences then and was relieved to find I’d been fooled . . . keep it up! I’m a faithful reader.

  • Congrats Nathan and thanks for sparking the data(viz) interest in me. I will be following your blog so long as you continue to deliver the top notch goods as always ;)

  • Congratulations! It’s a great blog, so good to know you’re keeping it up now you’ve finished your dissertation.

  • Congrats Nathan! You have a great blog! keep on rolling!