My life story is being featured on StoryOfMyLife.com this week, along with my wife, Tanda’s story. It was serendipitous how this came about! I had seen the website and had an impression of how it could be a great resource for grandparents. So I planned to write a review for my GrandparentsTLC.com blog. I was going to contact Story of My Life for more information. My goal was to share with grandparents how they could use the site as a tool write their life stories, then share them with their family. Their stories are stored forever as a legacy for future generations.
Then one day a couple of months ago, one of the head people at Story of My Life contacted me saying they would like to feature me and my wife on their website. Well, needless to say, I was thrilled! So they had a professional storyteller interview us and write our stories. When the stories were complete, we reviewed them, and requested a few minor changes.
To get information for my review, I had a phone call the lady that originally contacted me. I also suggested that we coordinate the date to feature our stories to coincide with my review. It worked out perfectly!
I have to say that the experience was very enjoyable. Tanda and I are impressed with how professional and courteous everyone is at StoryOfMyLife.com. We feel honored to be featured by Story of My Life. It is an well engineered website, and so easy to use. And it’s free! They are doing wonderful things there.
Now that the stories are published, I’ll confess that I didn’t quite know what to expect for the number or readers. I wondered how many readers would click one of the links to my three websites that are listed at the end of the articles. Well, I am totally amazed at the results so far! They really know how to make a story go viral!
- Views so far on Shayne’s story at Story of My Life: a few thousand in the first 24 hours. 110, 000 in the first 48 hours.
- Views so far on Tanda’s story at Story of My Life: 16,000 in the first 24 hours.
- Views for the most popular story there: 548,664 after 255 days.
My story was published Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 2009, and Tanda’s was the next day. Please read my review of the Story of My Life website on GrandparentsTLC.com. It also has the links to our stories on their website.
Enjoy – Shayne
February 7th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Dear Shayne,
Reading a great review like this is exactly the type of thing that puts fuel in my engine to keep me going. You totally understand what is our vision and our goal, and what we plan to achieve. You are a pioneer right alongside us to start recording life stories forever for future generations.
Thank you and I look forward to reading your life stories on the site.
Patrick
CEO, Story of My Life
February 7th, 2009 at 3:18 am
Patrick – Thank you for the nice comment. I have come to understand and appreciate what you are doing on SoML. Family history is very important to me. It’s part of my heritage, as Sarah wrote about in my story.
I want you to know that Tanda and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with your people. It’s apparent you have a dedicated staff. Having a software engineering background myself, I also recognize the amount of engineering that went into your site. It’s a fine piece of workmanship.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Update: After 3 days, Tanda’s story has had 112,000 views. After 4 days, mine has had 232,000 views. I hope Tanda’s will catch up. Even one of my daughters said Tanda’s is more interesting than mine.
I’ve been promoting my review and our stories on this blog and GrandparentsTLC.com and places like twitter, StumbleUpon, digg, and mixx. Most of the magic comes from the folks there at StoryOfMyLife.com They really know how to put the word out about their daily featured stories.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Shayne, That kind of traffic is insane! Have you seen an increase in traffic to your sites listed at the bottom of the story? Seems like this is great exposure for you and all your projects online. Congrats!
February 12th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Update: After 1 week, Tanda’s story has had 123,000 views.
After 8 1/2 days, mine has had 250,000 views. That’s a quarter of a million! I’m speechless.
@Jodi – Yes, I have seen an increase in traffic to all three of my sites.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Shayne,
What an exciting time this must be for you and Tanda. Congratulations on the massive exposure. I haven’t even gone to your stories yet, but I can’t wait now that I’ve read this piece. It was nice of Patrick to come by and comment on this post. They seem like a quality organization based on your review.
Have an outstanding day!
Bradley
@OutsideMyBrain
February 16th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Hi Shayne, I enjoy your writing style. It is an easy read. I was just referred to your site today by a friend. I look forward to reading more as soon as I can. Also looking forward to seeing your GrandparentsTLC blog. Congrats on your numbers.
Bill Beavers