UOI at 3

By Nader Uskowi

Uskowi on Iran’s first post appeared on 3 March 2007. Three years and hundreds of thousands of visitors later, we love to stay around three more years and beyond!

On 19 April 2008, Mark Pyruz began posting on UOI and immediately lifted the blog’s quality and readership. Today, Mark’s posts and photo and video galleries on Iran’s military and security forces have become an authoritative source for the students of Iranian armed forces and visited by hundreds of people each day. Paul Iddon began his posts on UOI on 31 July 2009 alongside running his busy blog, pauliddon.net. Paul as a student of history has enriched this blog with his historical perspectives on many current issues in Iran.

We all have our day jobs and post during our spare time, not an easy task. Mark, Paul and I could not have continued our work at UOI without the encouragement and support of our readers throughout these years. To our readers: Thank you. We are looking forward to your active engagement, comments and criticism to make this blog more useful. And big thanks to all our fellow bloggers who have shown their support by providing links to our blog. Cheers to all!

Uskowi on Iran: 2 Years Old!

I started this blog on Saturday 3 March 2007. The first post was on President Ahmadinejad’s comments on Iran’s uranium enrichment program, famously comparing it to a train with no breaks. It feels like ages ago, yet so new!

Back then, I expected to have few readers, perhaps some friends and family. But Internet is a serious business. These days, the blog is visited by more than 500 readers (unique visitors) a day; by no means a big number in the cyberspace, but probably not a bad start for a little blog on Iran written not in Farsi but in English. Yesterday, we had more than 1,500 visitors, and more than 4,000 page loads, with Admiral Mullen’s comments on Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the arrest in Tehran of the journalist Roxna Saberi generating lots of interests, and with Hoffingtonpost.com and CNN.com linking Uskowi on Iran to their coverage of those breaking stories.

The biggest thing that happened to us last year, however, was the arrival of Mark Pyruz on 19 April to become the co-author and the co-administrator of the blog. Mark brings to the table a depth of knowledge on Iran and specifically on Iranian military development that is unparalleled in the field today. His first post, Iran Air Force Photo Gallery, and the subsequent Iranian military photo/video galleries, have become points of reference for the students of Iranian military, and are continually visited by hundreds of readers each day.

Mark acts as our military analyst, and I try to comment on the political implications of the country’s nuclear and military developments and its internal politics, acting as the political analyst if you will. This year we are hoping to have other authors joining us to concentrate on economic and social issues facing Iran, Insha’Allah!

Mark joins me to thank you all for your readership, your comments and your support. It’s great to follow issues facing Iran together with you all. Please post comments or email us on how we can improve this blog going forward.

Mamnoon,
Nader