It has once again been a year of continued growth for us here at The Hot Zone Online. In no particular order, here is our official recap of this year’s goings-on:

- 10 Featured Product columns published, ranging from products such as hot sauce, snacks, pepper mashes, salsas, and much more

- 56 Hot Sauce Reviews published, thanks especially to ace writer Passow for his efforts

- 49 Product Reviews published, covering the wide world of spicy food products including mustards, jerk sauces, wing sauces, snack foods, BBQ sauces, and others

- 9 Homemade Hot Sauce reviews published, none of which could have happened without the generosity and hot sauce fervor of our readers

- 5 Restaurant Reviews published, almost all of which were first-hand accounts…to our gastronomic delight

- Many more articles about all sorts of fun stuff, industry news, and much, much more

Also happening in 2007:

- If you’re into the stats, we had 84,296 unique visitors to our blog in 2007, of which 68,856 were first-time visitors and 15,440 were return visitors. We had visitors to our blog from 160 countries from six different continents. While there’s definitely room for more growth, we are definitely a world-wide phenomenon!

- Our readership has doubled again from the end of the year 2006. We now have a daily readership of over 400 unique visitors. Again, this blog was getting 5 hits a day when it started in 2005.

- Added three more fantastic writers with diverse backgrounds: Jim, Harald, Woody. Harald is from Germany and Woody from the UK, so that definitely adds an International flavor to our chilehead readership and authorship.

- Our Raising the HEAT for Autism charity drive has raised nearly $1300 by the end of the year through the sale of a limited edition hot sauce collectible by CaJohns, eBay auctions of donated products, and private donations.

- Attended the inaugural Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire where we shmoozed and tasted our way through an amazing weekend of fun, all while meeting some great people within the industry

Coming in 2008:

- Many more reviews (hot sauces and others) and Featured Product writeups. On average, there is a review of something new done every 3 or 4 days here.

- Anticipating adding at least 3 new writers officially, including some from within the industry to add their unique stories and experience

- New site features and some new ‘skins‘ for our site design for those of you who want to keep our look a little different on your home ‘puter.

- More that we can’t even anticipate…;)

The moral of the story: stay tuned and keep checking in with us to read the articles, contribute, and see how we continue to grow. Our blog is only as strong as its readers, both new and old, and you all rock! Thanks to you all!

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI