Another year has come and gone and KP idles along in its small corner of the blogosphere.  For a year in which social media was touted as emerging as a significant competitor to the corporate press as framers of political discourse and debate in NZ, we had little impact outside of a dedicated core of readers.

KP published 55 posts in 2014. All but ten were written by me. Anita did not contribute this year and Lew wrote the ten that I did not (including all of June’s posts). His posts covered important domestic issues and were, as is always the case, the most read and had the most impact in terms of generating larger debate. I spent a bit more time on domestic related issues than I usually do and started adding links to other commentary that I have done, mostly in the fields of intelligence, security and NZ foreign policy. As has been the trend from the beginning, these received less attention than “purely” domestic or party politics related posts, and my posts on global affairs and international relations received the least amount of hits (and in some cases no comments). Having said that, my posts on the dire state of the NZ Left in January, May and September did generate some interesting responses in the comments and a couple of ripostes from Chris Trotter, and proved to be sadly prophetic in the wake of the election. They also elicited some gleeful coverage among Right leaning blogs, which was unfortunate.

We received around 3500 reads per month, with the high being 12000+ in September. The number of comments varied considerably but consistently averaged between 10-15 per post. No one was banned although one individual was warned off (see below). Other than the latter’s, most commentary was intelligent and civilised.

Most of our referrals came from other social media, especially twitter, although any mention in the Herald or NBR brought a relative flood of readers.  We also received traffic from other NZ political blogs, mostly on the Left. The cross-pollination is regular and welcome.

Traffic came predominantly from NZ, although there is a dedicated group of readers from overseas. I had a problem with trolling on a couple of my posts (primarily about Eastern Europe), including some ad hominum attacks from a NZ based clown who works for a NZ government agency and who used deliberately misdirected email servers to cover his tracks. To say the least he is not welcome here and if he persists I will be forced to out him by name. Let’s just say that we know each other from a past life.

Otherwise it was business as usual. KP is not out to make a splash or turn its authors into notorieties. We do not toe a party line, try not to be hysterical and although very critical of those in power most definitely reject the very concept of “attack” blogging. We leave that for others with darker inclinations. I cannot speak for Anita and Lew, but for me blogging on KP fills a space that is somewhere between academic writing, editorial writing, business analysis and personal reflection. In that measure it serves its purpose.

We shall see how this year goes. Without countervailing input from my other colleagues and with the press of my business commitments growing while I share parenting duties of a toddler (at an age normally associated with grandparenting), I foresee less time to write for KP and consequently a diminished number of posts. But one never knows what the future may bring, so I shall use the theme of embracing uncertainty as my motto for the next 12 months.

All the best to our readers for a healthy and happy 2015.