Wrapping Up 2012

In years past VFTD has done a Year in Review retrospective of the last season as we usher in the new. Not gonna happen this year. Frankly I is just too damn busy (and the search function on Blogger just plain sucks.) Instead I'm gonna close out 2012 with a few random thoughts, well wishes and a shameless appeal or two.

Since PBA is still milking the MVP voting I am inspired to name VFTD's World Cup MVP. Oh, it's been done? That's okay. This is a little different. I'ma tell you who and those of you intrepid enough or swayed by free swag will tell me why. Like Jeopardy but better. (Okay, maybe not better but then Jeopardy never asks paintball questions.) The reasoning that most closely approximates my own will win a free VFTD T-shirt. You may respond in comments or via Baca's Mailbag (email addy). Got it?
And the winner is ... Sergei Solnyshkov. (I will accept all entries received prior to midnight EST January 7th 2013.

On the analytics front numbers are up across the board here at VFTD. Not huge by PBN standards, or to be honest probably any well known mainstream paintball site (like Social) but traffic has never been the goal. The goal has always been to been to focus on competitive paintball while leaving no subject off limits. (Well, and to remain honest, it's also been about influencing the powers that be.) That said it is gratifying that there are as many of you out there who choose to frequent VFTD. The big jumps by nationality this year were France and the Philippines both of whom made the top 10 this past month. The U.S. audience remains the largest by a substantial amount of course but the top 10 countries in audience this past month reflect the worldwide audience; U.S., UK, Russia, France, Canada, Philippines, Sweden, Norway, Singapore & Germany. (More typical months in the past would have included Malaysia and another Euro or South American country instead of the Philippines and Singapore.)
What, you want to know some real numbers? Fine, the average week sees just over 4K unique visitors with around 50% being from the U.S. & Canada.

Now for a little advice to see you into your 2013 paintball adventures. If you are the leader of a team it is important that you set some goals for the upcoming season. Set some mundane goals you expect to reach. Set some goals that you can check off as accomplished as the season progresses and set some goals that at first may seem out reach so that by the time 2013 is over your team can look back and see, step by step what was accomplished, take pride in the positives and then look forward again to what still needs doing.
And as a player you should do much the same thing in terms of setting personal goals. But before you do that consider what will it take to be the player you aspire to be? What proactive steps you can take and incorporate the accomplishment of those steps into your list of goals.

And finally, the shameless plug. In the next week (or so) a sidebar link will be posted dedicated to scheduling clinics. [There will be a separate dedicated website.] Along with the 2-day team(s) clinic--which I highly recommend--I will also be offering a 1-day clinic open to anyone option that will retain the team-oriented focus of how the individual player fits into the team concept. The 1-day clinic will cover some of the same territory as the 2-day in an easier to organize format. [Accurate event dates should be released soon. Fingers crossed.]