Orthodox Easter Bunny Tracker - News
Welcome to the news feed for track.orthodoxbunny.cc, where you can stay updated with the latest information from the team running track.orthodoxbunny.cc.
You can also stay updated by following our Twitter, @trackorthobunny.
track.orthodoxbunny.cc has been shut down.
Posted: April 19, 2023
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Following our 2023 run of track.orthodoxbunny.cc, unfortunately, we have reset the tracker for the final time.
Thank you all for your support of track.orthodoxbunny.cc. For the 2023 run, we got approximately 2,000-2,500 hits, which is on par with last year. We also saw a few folks streaming the tracker on YouTube as well.
As mentioned in the post announcing the shutdown, TOBCC is shutting down primarily due to low usage (~1-2% of the normal hits of track.easterbunny.cc) combined with intensive infrastructure demands. It's no longer feasible for one person to run both track.easterbunny.cc and track.orthodoxbunny.cc. Especially as we look towards the future with track.easterbunny.cc and future versions, I want to dedicate as much time as possible to making the best Easter Bunny Tracker possible.
I understand that the shutdown of the tracker is disappointing, but it's the best decision that can be made at this time. We had 3 great years of running, and as unfortunate as it is that the experiment of attempting to bring an Orthodox Easter Bunny Tracker to market did fail, a lot was learned!
In lieu of this, I encourage you to await the release of track.easterbunny.cc's open-source code for Version 6, coming sometime in May 2023. If you'd like to keep the dream of an Orthodox Easter Bunny Tracker alive, feel free to use the track.easterbunny.cc's code and go wild. That's why the tracker is open-source: even when we have to shut our doors, our code is our legacy so others can pass along the torch.
Thank you all once again for your support, and I hope you continue tracking on track.easterbunny.cc!
track.orthodoxbunny.cc upgraded to Version 2.6.2
Posted: March 27, 2023
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Hello all - track.orthodoxbunny.cc Version 2.6.2 has been released today. This version of the tracker includes some bug fixes and small feature improvements for tracking in a few weeks time.
Some other site-wide work has been done today and as always I hope you enjoy these changes for the final run of tracking.
track.orthodoxbunny.cc's last run will be in 2023
Posted: February 3, 2023
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When we launched track.orthodoxbunny.cc in 2020, we set out to try and create a separate experience for Orthodox Easter Bunny tracking, something that nobody else had done before. We have continued to support our separate Orthodox Easter Bunny Tracker for the last two years with runs in 2021 and 2022.
Unfortunately, what we're seeing is that the Orthodox Easter Bunny tracking scene is extremely niche. The site only posts about ~1-2% of the traffic that track.easterbunny.cc posts. Given the high infrastructure demands of track.orthodoxbunny.cc (which is basically creating a replica of track.easterbunny.cc's infrastructure), updating it only a week after TEBCC finishes running (which is just as crazy as it sounds), it's clear that I can no longer continue to run track.orthodoxbunny.cc.
As a solo dev, there's only so much time on my plate, and I've decided that it's best for track.orthodoxbunny.cc to have its final run in 2023. This has been a great experiment for the last 3 years and even though this experiment failed, I'm glad we tried to break into this market.
Here's how things will work for track.orthodoxbunny.cc with the final run.
TOBCC will stay on the v5.6 codebase that TEBCC used last year, we will not be using the v6 codebase that's new for track.easterbunny.cc this year. We'll kick off pre-tracking on April 15, 2023 at 2 AM EDT, tracking on April 15, 2023 at 5 AM EDT, and tracking will end on April 16, 2023 at 6 AM EDT.
After that, the tracker will stay online for a week, closing down on April 23, 2023. Once this happens, the site will no longer display a countdown, rather a thank you message informing that a 2024 run will not occur. I intend for the orthodoxbunny.cc domain to be released sometime in 2024 or 2025.
Social media coverage will be limited for our final run. We'll have a couple hourly updates as we see fit during important moments of the tracker.
Lastly, I hope this doesn't mark the end of Orthodox Easter Bunny Trackers. I hope that someone can take the torch and run their own tracker, maybe even with the help of the new TEBCC v6 codebase once it's open sourced. It's reasons like this why TEBCC is open-source in the first place, even when we may cease operations, our codebase will be our legacy and allow other sites to take the torch and start something amazing.
Thank you all for a great two years of Orthodox Easter Bunny tracking, and we can't wait for the third and final year.
Thank you for your support in 2022!
Posted: April 22, 2022
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Thank you for your support of track.orthodoxbunny.cc in 2022! This year was another good year for the tracker. Using some estimates, we can see that about 2,000-3,000 people visited the website compared to last year (exact numbers are unavailable as TEBCC was still up). Streams of the tracker on YouTube did well too - combined, we did about 4,000 to 5,000 hits with YouTube involved.
Because of the quick transition between Easter and Orthodox Easter, we were unable to fully deploy the tracker nicely. Next year, we'll focus on deploying both trackers before Easter, just so everything is set and we're not racing to the finish line as TEBCC closes up post-tracking.
See you all in 2023! Orthodox Easter is on April 16, 2023, which is one week after Western Easter.
Welcome to track.orthodoxbunny.cc in 2022!
Posted: April 22, 2022
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Welcome to track.orthodoxbunny.cc in 2022! The tracker has now been updated to use the latest and greatest v5.6 code from track.easterbunny.cc. All changes in that tracker have now been reflected over to this tracker.
Once again, due to the more minimal presence of the tracker, our social media presence will be limited this year. We will try to get updates on tracking out on Twitter at an hourly basis.
Pre-tracking gets underway on Saturday, April 23, 2022 at 2:00 AM EDT - with tracking getting started at 5 AM EDT. Tracking ends on Sunday, April 24, 2022 at 6:00 AM EDT.
After tracking, we'll leave the site open until April 28.
We hope you enjoy tracking this year!
Thank you for a successful first run!
Posted: May 2, 2021
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Thank you for a successful first run of track.orthodoxbunny.cc! This first run of track.orthodoxbunny.cc was about collecting information about the potential user market for this tracker, and we've got some great insights.
The final hit count was around 1,100, with traffic following pattern of more heavier usage in the afternoon. Traffic was dominated by the United States, with the UK coming in second, and Canada third.
What we've concluded from this run is that the Orthdox Easter Bunny Tracker will likely remain a niche product.
As such, we're going to keep this tracker more low-key compared to track.easterbunny.cc. Changes between the two trackers will be minimal, and we'll continue on our lean but necessary social media presence. Of course, this is highly dependent on traffic going to track.orthodoxbunny.cc.
Dependent on more growth in the future, we may invest more time into track.orthodoxbunny.cc. This could include more changes between the trackers, a more prominent social media presence, etc.
Although track.orthodoxbunny.cc only received ~1.1% of the traffic that track.easterbunny.cc received this year, this was a very successful experiment for us.
Even with this great data that we got - we unfortunately didn't find any ethical ad networks to use, and AdSense approval continues to be pending for the site. Additionally, we misconfigured page rules on the site, meaning that only ~20% of requests were cached at Cloudflare. This didn't matter due to the very low traffic amounts - but we'll sort this out for future years.
We'll see you next year for the second run of track.orthodoxbunny.cc!
v1.5.2 updates & more information about the tracker!
Posted: April 28, 2021
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As we get closer and closer to the liftoff date for track.orthodoxbunnycc, we've been making some improvements on the site, along with some changes. Here's what we've changed in the past couple of days.
Welcome to track.orthodoxbunny.cc Version 1!
Posted: April 21, 2021
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Welcome to track.orthodoxbunny.cc Version 1! We have merged all the code changes from track.easterbunny.cc Version 5 into our tracker, and we are getting closer to the first liftoff come May 1, 2021 at 2 AM EDT.
We are continuing to set things up around here, and will do so in an accelerated timeline.
As you may know, we are using this site as a test bed to test concepts for track.easterbunny.cc Version 6 in an attempt to break even with map costs. This may include showing ads in certain parts of the tracker, having links to Patreon/Ko-Fi, etc etc. This will slowly begin to appear in the tracker in the coming days.
Finally, our social media presence will not be as strong compared to track.easterbunny.cc, given this is our first year. We're currently targeting hourly tweets on our Twitter page, with no dedicated update bot for this year. Depending on the traffic this year, we may consider this next year.
We hope you can track with us on May 1, 2021. More updates are coming soon!
Welcome to track.orthodoxbunny.cc!
Posted: July 24, 2020
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Welcome to track.orthodoxbunny.cc! We're super excited that you're here.
So, you're probably wondering who runs this site, and what this site even does. Time for a bit of history.
We're the track.easterbunny.cc team! We're behind track.easterbunny.cc, which has revolutionized Easter Bunny Tracking since 2019.
During the 2020 run of track.easterbunny.cc as we got 850% more hits than last year, some of our users wanted to know if track.easterbunny.cc would run again for Orthodox Easter a week later. At the time, we decided not to do a second run of track.easterbunny.cc as to not confuse users, and there wasn't enough time to set up a whole site dedicated to Orthodox Easter Bunny Tracking.
However, here we are! track.orthodoxbunny.cc aims to provide a great Easter Bunny Tracking experience for when the Easter Bunny makes his Orthodox Easter journey.
track.orthodoxbunny.cc runs on the same code as track.easterbunny.cc. If you've used track.easterbunny.cc, you've used our site! You'll get to enjoy all the same features that made track.easterbunny.cc a hit on a dedicated website just for Orthodox Easter Bunny Tracking.
As we enter this experimental space that's never really had a dedicated tracker before, we're taking our first run in 2021 to get user feedback, and figure out the future of track.orthodoxbunny.cc. That's why we're highly relying on your user feedback for this first year for ideas, suggestions, or anything you want to tell us.
In the mean time, the site version is v0.5.4. We're currently focused on building track.easterbunny.cc Version 5 (which this site is based on), and you likely won't see a ton of updates on this site until after Western Easter 2021. After that, we'll port over the changes from track.easterbunny.cc Version 5, bump up the version to v1.x.x, and go from there for the month leading up to Orthodox Easter.
We expect this workflow to come a bit earlier for 2022/2023 when Orthodox Easter is one week after Western Easter.
Right now, we don't have any dedicated social media channels to the Orthodox Easter Bunny Tracker, or a dedicated email address. We're working on setting that up in the coming weeks, and we'll make a new news post & update the site when that's ready.
We're also continuing to set up the full website (including redirecting www.orthodoxbunny.cc & orthodoxbunny.cc to track.orthodoxbunny.cc), among other little things like that.
Curious for when we'll get tracking in 2021? Here's the timeline.