Adil Najam
The very first post on ATP came online at 1:18:49PM on June 11, 2006. This current post marks the completion of exactly one year of this blog. It has been quite a ride.
I had never expected this to become anything more than a vehicle for some catharsis on Pakistan and Pakistani issues that would be read, maybe, by a few friends. Instead, I have been amazed at how fast word spread on the web and how many new friends we have made on that way. I just checked our stats meter and found that over this year we have had well over one million (1,000,000) page views and and just under half a million separate visits. We have had over 600 posts, some 17,000 comments, and contributions from 44 authors. A rather amusing manifestation of this success is that even though we are quite clearly not a news site, Google News now considers us to be a news site and reglarly highlights our posts in its Pakistan news section!
The surprise and sentiments that I had expressed at ATP’s grwhen we reached our 100th post, and then again in our ‘moving forward’ post when we turned this into a team blog, and yet again in the post announcing our new domain name (Pakistaniat.com), and finally in our 6-month anniversary post still remain true today; only more so.
For all the support from all the people who have made this blog their regular visiting ground, I say ‘Thank You.’ Its been quite a ride. But a fun ride (mostly!). The work has grown tremendously and the sometimes as one has to baby-sit childish anger bursts in the comments section and clean up the mess of misbehavior of some commenters, one does feel a little down. But the ‘up’ moments have been far more numerous and far more fullfiling then then the ‘down’ moments. For all those ‘up’ moments; thank you.
But now it is time to move on.
As of today, we are making some significant changes in ATP management. My colleague Owais Mughal will take over from me as the Managing Editor of ATP. I hope that you will all afford the same support to him that you have to me and am confident that the blog will become ever better and more popular under his management. Please join me, all, in welcoming him to this position. May this be as enjoyable for him as it has been for me!
This does not mean that I will disappear (unfortaunetly for some!). I will be around (I do not think I am capable of cutting myself from this) and will write probably as often as I now do, but the day to day leadership will shift to Owais. I have always thought that institutions, even insignificant ones like ATP, should not be tied to individuals. Unfortunately in Pakistan we do not have a tradition of founders of anything ever moving on and giving the helm to others. In a (very) small way, we at Pakistaniat want to demonstrate otherwise.
I will join Bilal Zuberi as a Contributing Editor and also joining Bilal and me in that capacity will be our young friend Darwaish, from Lahore, whose posts you have all already become familiar with. Thank you Darwaish. And welcome!
So with that, let me – yet again – thank you all for making ATP a stop in your web-hopping. I never imagined that it will become this big a party. But I am glad it did. So, friends in Pakistaniat, party on!
One more request to all. Our next step is to try to redesign the page sometimes soon. KO is exactly right that it has gotten cluttered and teh ATP team will work on uncluttering it. Teeth Maestro and BD have already agreed to help ATP in this process. If others have any ideas about redesign, please do share.
thanks adil for starting this blog. we need more of this in the days to come. for once, it is difficult being cynical. congratulations.
Dear all, thanks for all the kind words and wishes. They mean a lot to all of us at ATP.
I did want to say that I wrote and posted the above rather hurriedly while at a meeting in the Netherlands and I forgot to properly thank al teh guest posters and now regulars who have been writing for us. Much of the real variety comes from them. We also get a lot of story ideas from readers and I wish to thank them too. Also we would like to thank the larger Pakistani blogsphere – blogistan – and the print and electronic media in Pakistan …. these are a source for us to keep a finger on the pulse of Pakistan and most of our story ideas come from here. Finally, a number of people in the Pakistani blogistan have been just critical in making this happen… Shirazi with his early encouragement and ideas, Teeth Maestro who has been ever-ready to give advice on technical as well as substantive matters, and all the folks who put Pakistan-related stuff at YouTube, which has been one of our lifelines. I am sure I am missing others but I hope they will understand.
Congratulations to the entire editorial team of ATP. You have made us all proud of being Pakistani. One may find stuff on Pakistan at ATP that could not be found any place else. Other than Adil, Owais and Darwaish, let us not forget the contributions of Shirazi, Rumi and the phantom Mast Qalandar. In spite of all the hacklers and bashers out there, all of you have done a superb job. Congratulations to all of you guys.
Congrats to the whole team. Hats off to the members as well for putting on a show day after day. I have nothing but well wishes for this site.