Yeah, once again I write that it has been awfully quiet here, that I have been and am hellishly busy. All true, just as it was last time. And the time before. In fact, my workload has gone up, not down. So, should I revive this blog? And if so, with what type of content?
The answer seems pretty clear to me! In its hey days in 2016 and 2017 dinosaurpalaeo had over 70k visitors per year. The highest number of views per day was well over 1,000. Ever since the number of visitors and views has dropped steadily. However, the most viewed post, my continuously updated tutorial on how to handle a project in Agisoft Metshape (previously Photoscan) still had thousands of views last year, and I keep getting comments and emails thanking me for the post. Another well-received post is the one on rainy day zoo visits. It seems, most viewer come here not for dinosaurs, but for photogrammetry and via online searches of terms like “zoo rain” etc.
Well, I still love zoos, I still am firmly convinced that zoo visits are a time well spent for palaeontologists. And I still am firmly convinced that zoos offer more when emptier, hence my preference for sub-optimal weather. However, professionally I have by now shifted even more towards 3D scanning than was the case in 2016/17. As a consequence, my expertise has grown to the point where I can rightfully claim to be one of the most experiences vertebrate palaeontolgists with regards to surface scanning and the use of the resulting data.
So, should I continue posting whatever comes to my mind, wandering wildly from anything vaguely dinosaur-related to highly technical articles on the is and outs of photogrammetry and software to handle the data with? Or should I focus?
Well, gee, the traffic tells me what to do!
So, dinosaurpalaeo will become a more focused dino&methods blog from now on. I think. Or not…..
😉
dinosaurpalaeo 
What ever you do, you shouldn’t become to dogmatic. 😉
Welcome back!
“So, should I continue posting whatever comes to my mind, wandering wildly from anything vaguely dinosaur-related to highly technical articles on the is and outs of photogrammetry and software to handle the data with? Or should I focus?”
With all my heart I implore you: write about what you want to write about. When people force themselves to write about stuff that doesn’t excite them, it’s apparent. Readers wouldn’t be able to explain why, but they can tell there’s a lack of enthusiasm. But when someone writes about something they really care about, it comes through.