A few days after getting the keys to Upstart Blogger I posted a run down of my plans for 2008. Six months later, and as part of the ongoing series of monthly income statements, now is a good time to take a look at what has worked, what hasn’t worked. Here’s a recap of the original plan, updated with the current figures up to and including June 2008

1. Double the unique visitors. In January 2008 Upstart Blogger had a steady 30,000 unique visitors per month. In June 2008 it attracted 42,562 unique visitors. At the 6 month mark I had hoped to have crossed the 45,000 uniques per month mark but 42,562 is still encouraging. 60,000 unique monthly visitors is still in range for the end of 2008.
2. Push the RSS subscriber count through the 1000 barrier. In January the figure stood at 450. Now it is comfortably and reliably over 1000. As of today the exact count is 1052. With this success in mind I’m not pushing for 2000 subscribers by the end of the year.
3. Launch a range of free ebook and email courses to help bloggers in all aspects of their blogging. The 30 day email blogging course was a great success and well received by those who took part. This course will be expanded and be open to everyone from next month. The ebooks are still in the planning stage and may or may not see the light of day.
4. Push higher through the Technorati rankings. On January 1st 2008 Upstart Blogger ranked at 344. Today it ranks at number 63 having shot into the top 100 a little while ago. The only way is up and the revised target for the end of the year is to make the Technorati Top 50.
5. Earn a Google page rank of 7. This was achieved in the last ranking update and Upstart Blogger is now proudly carries a PR7. I still consider PR8 to be a little ambitious for this year but nothing is impossible.
6. Give away a high quality wordpress theme every month. This didn’t happen but is something I plan to address very soon.
7. The Upstart Blogger Blog Network. This hasn’t gone to plan and was perhaps an ill advised idea. I’ve shelved this idea for the moment. I’ll reassess this position over the next six months.

The total income generated by Upstart Blogger in June 2008 was $3425, an marked increase from last months figure of $2860 and roughly in line with the increase in traffic. Total income for the first half of 2008 is $13,045

It’s been a great six months and I look forward to pushing things further between now and the end of the and beyond. Thanks to everyone for your continued support.