Holidays & VFTD's International Audience

Consider this post a little bit of public housekeeping. Not necessarily all that exciting but occasionally required. If you are on Facebook you might have noticed a recent campaign to bump up VFTD "likes." (If not you'll just have to take my word for it.) It was conducted by a friend of the blog who works for FB as an experiment and in an effort to increase VFTD's reach among paintballers. It has yet to have a similar impact on this blog's analytics but it may have broadened the international audience here and there. (And there may be some lag before the campaign's impact asserts itself.) In recent years over a typical month long period VFTD is read in around 70 different countries with a few changes month to month at the end of the listing. In the last week China has jumped up to #10. That means paintballers in China had the tenth most page views this past week of any country around the world. (I think it's the first time China has passed Malaysia.) And that leaves me curious. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who knows more about the effort to bring paintball to China and what if any progress is being made. Thanks!
There's also been a big jump recently in VFTD's audience in France. France has been in the lower half of Euro countries since the blog's start despite the popularity of tourney ball in France so I'm pleased to see such positive movement. (France is currently number 3 behind the U.S. and Canada. Normally it also trails the U.K., Russia, Germany and sometimes various of the Scandinavian countries in ranking the world audience.)
This time of year here in the United States things tend to slow down paintball-wise as winter takes hold and the holiday season begins in a couple of days. Here at VFTD I will keep up with the latest news (and the best gossip) but it may be things won't begin to heat up again until January. That very likely being the case in the past I have encouraged this audience to take advantage of the lack of activity to send in questions, comments, observations or whatever strikes your fancy to Baca's Mailbag using the email link (in blue) on the sidebar as this is the time of year when I have the most time to respond to readers' queries. I'm happy anytime of year to respond to email addressed to this blog but during the holidays I can handle more volume. So I would encourage you drop me a line anytime wherever you're from but for a while at least I'll give priority to email from China and France.
Happy (early) Thanksgiving to all. Whether you and yours officially celebrate Thanksgiving or not there's never a wrong time to take a moment and reflect on our blessings with gratitude.