blackbird puts Jelen's army of Excel geeks at 100,000!

Yup, 'tis I again. With yet 'nother bit of a milestone for our little community here.<SUP>1</SUP>

The other day I just happened to notice that we were sitting on ninety-nine thousand, six hundred and some odd members. And if one mouses over the name of the newest member you see the URL in the status bar which will give you their actual user number. I noticed that there was a bit of a disconnect between the user ID numbers and the display, so I started checking to see when user ID 100,000 would hit<SUP>2</SUP>. He hit on August 5th -- a chap (well, could be a gal) by the name of Macgos (though he [or she] has yet to post).

Tonight as I happened to mouseketeer my way through the neighborhood, I noticed that shows "board statistics" was sittin' on 99,997! Well, ya jus' gotta start birddoggin' at that point!

And sure 'nuf I managed to get a screen shot of the stats line hitting 100,000 members. So, welcome to blackbird who gets the honor for being member "100,000" (or 100,204 depending on how you look at it).







<HR>1. The other milestone refer to , of course, was our 1,000,000<SUP>th</SUP> post.
2. There is also a disconnect if you list the membership. We seem to only list about 94,700+ members on the actual roster.

Good job, Greg!

Pssst, don't tell anybody. Seems like you are a busy man, with 89 PMs in your boxes.
Or else you are a lazy man, who never cleans up.

I had noticed we were nearing the 100,000 mark, but didn't stay up to watch it! It is pretty cool. I wonder if blackbird will realise the fuss, or will stop by the lounge. I wonder if this person will stick around or pass on through.

I like the idea of 'Jelen's army of Excel geeks' as well. Has a certain ring to it!

Greg:

Thanks for noticing this milestone! Very cool

I was doing a seminar somewhere and I always show the message board and ask who in the audience has used the board. A bunch of hands went up. I asked someone to volunteer their username and none of these 20+ people had ever signed up to post at the board! They all said that they routinely found their answers simply by searching. This made me think that we have a large population of people lurking who never post.

I went back to Google Analytics. They suggest that 597,000 unique visitors have come to MrExcel.com in the last 30 days, and 3.4 million unique visitors have come to MrExcel.com at least once this year. 60% of those hit one page, read the page the browsed away never to return. Factor in that some people probably can not be tracked correctly by Google and appear as new each time, and that other people sign in from 2+ computers (work, home, laptop, etc), I would say that we still have a large population beyond the 100,000 who have signed up.

Bottom line, though... thanks to everyone reading this, including those who have signed up to post and those lurking to search for their answers!

Bill

FYI - this just came in across the CNN RSS feed...




<HR>Akron OHIO, Aug 8<SUP>th</SUP>, 2008 (AP) -- While the world’s attention has been focused on the Beijing Olympics a disturbing situation has slowly emerged in the world of Excel, the earth’s leading financial analysis software program.

A certain Mr. Bill Jelen, street name “MrExcel”, has quietly assembled an army of 100,000 Excel nerds. On August 7<SUP>th</SUP>, his website added a new member with the ominous-sounding name of “blackbird”. The reference to the famous spy plane and Lockheed’s infamous “skunk works” could not be more obvious.

“It was not really that big of a deal when they only had 99,981 members. But now that they’ve hit the six-digit mark, it’s definitely cause for concern” said an industry insider who requested anonymity. He added “You don’t know what they’re capable of doing to you if you make them angry. I mean this is just a list of retributions they’re willing to publish. Gives me the collywobbles even pondering what their black list must look like.”

At a press conference in Washington DC this morning Deparment of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff noted “we are aware of the situation and have been looking into it quite thoroughly. Right now our investigation focuses on this “starl” person. She is located just a little too close to our strategic missiles silos for our comfort. I mean, really, who is going to believe that an Excel project manager lives on a farm in South Dakota? Off the record, we hear that she is completely dissatisfied with her current pool boy / stable hand and is looking to can his sorry butt as soon as she can find a replacement. So we think we have a way to get a man inside her operation.”

Others seem less concerned about Mr. Jelen’s activities. When contacted by phone, Hugh Hefner stated “I have never seen anything remotely resembling malice in Bill or any of his ‘geek posse’. Every time they’ve been to the mansion to work on our Chart the Playmates Hotness project none of them have seemed, well, ‘sophisticated’. Frankly it’s been hard to pull Bill away from the grotto and to get him to focus on the project. I mean, you’d think he’d never been surrounded by hotties or something.”

Notable industry guru Jon Peltier disagrees about Jelen’s sophistication. “That Playboy project was totally mine and Jelen swiped it out from under me. I mean *I* am the recognized expert in Excel charts. ‘Charting Playmate Hotness’, that just screams ‘Jon Peltier’. But Hef was all like “but Jelen has all these podcasts. Do you have podcasts?” Jelen got in on his celebrity and being a pretty boy, pure and simple.”

It is uncertain what exactly Jelen is plotting to do with his army of geeks, but I would say the rest of the world would be wise to keep an eye on his website.

With 100,000 enlisted troops, plus say 250,000 militia, that puts this army right up there on the world stage in terms of numbers. Right behind that Harry Krishna guy, I reckon.

That was a great bit of reading there Greg. Thanks for providing us with the latest news from the AP.

A certain Mr. Bill Jelen, street name “MrExcel”, has quietly assembled an army of 100,000 Excel nerds.

Click to expand...

I resent that. I am not an Excel nerd.

I am an Excel geek.

P.S. That Miss July has a great pair of podcasts, if you ask me!

Jon Peltier said:

I am an Excel geek.

Click to expand...

You are an industry guru or recognized expert, please see above.

Thanks for catching this, Greg. It is always nice to know one is not alone

ben.