Remember back on 1 July, I promised to share the “50 Followers” badge when I got it?

Remember 5 July when I said I had 49 followers?

Guess what?

Yup. I just got the badge for accumulating 55 followers.

Wait, what?

See, it’s like this. In reality, I have 55 followers.

That’s a nice number I can advertise (I’m sure any prospective employers will be thrilled to see such a high number…)

But it’s not the number WordPress uses when awarding badges. Those are based on the number of WordPress.com followers: people who have accounts (and therefore blogs, even if they never use them) at WordPress.com.

That goes back to our discussion of why WordPress gives badges (for those of you who missed it, it’s all about the advertising).

So on 5 July, in WordPress’ opinion I had 44 real followers.

My apologies to the five of you who fall into the category of “second class citizens”. I just want you to know that I value you just as much as the other fifty folks keeping an eye on my ramblings here.

Thank you all for sticking with me. It took almost exactly four months to get to this point. Let’s see if we can get to the next official milestone (100 followers) in three months. Spread the word!

In conclusion, let me leave you with these immortal words from “UFO”:

Oops, sorry. Wrong movie. …these immortal words from “Blazing Saddles“:

Umm. …”Treasure of the Sierra Madre“:

Oh, bother. Never mind. Tune in later today for a new post. If Google cooperates, it’ll be on whatever it is they have up their collective sleeve.