THUNDER BAY – What a week! From Sunday to Tuesday there were 34,000 new readers onboard NetNewsledger. Looking over the server stats, we started some continued tweaking of the site to further improve site performance. On November 1st, at one point during the day we were averaging over 1000 visitors during a five minute period. That is starting to happen far more frequently when breaking stories come together in the news. In fact on November 1st, according to Alexa.com, NetNewsledger was the 50,000th most popular website in the world. When you consider that 196.3 million top-level domains had been registered by Q2 of 2010, that is a pretty impressive figure for a site operating out of Northwestern Ontario’s largest city.
On Wednesday night, our Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Brett was working on those needed tweaks, his young daughter, aged three, ended up on the computer. Somehow the keyboard ended up on the floor. Amazingly, when it hit the floor it ended up causing the site to crash. “A million to one shot” as made famous in Seinfeld. So on Wednesday night, if you logged on NNL and got an Apache Server Screen, or the site simply would not load, that is why. As we discussed later, better now than later, and we set in a few security back-ups that will help prevent any future similar incident.
Over the past several months, we have continued to grow. It is honestly really exciting. We view ourselves as Northwestern Ontario’s eye on the world, and the world comes to NetNewsledger to find out what is happening in our region. NetNewsledger can now claim, without reservation that we are the most read news and information portal in Northern Ontario. That claim isn’t marketing hype, it is based on data from Alexa.com, one of the top website ranking services online.
That is all thanks to you, our readers, and to our growing list of advertisers. We welcome onboard Shaw, Confederation College, Dell, Kegworks, Rainbow on Bay, and Orbitz.
Our Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Angelo Petta is at your service. Frankly put, our philosophy is we don’t want to “sell you an ad”, but rather work with you so that your business is a success. You will find our data-package on your ad will give you the information you need to ensure success. The world of online marketing is still new, and it means a whole lot more than just popping ads up on websites. The content, placement and re-direction of your ad all are key to determining success.
Online, you will likely note that our font is different from most other sites. We use a Serif font that is a little bolder than most news and information websites. There is a reason for that, it is easier to read for you. our readers. The ‘serif’ is loosely meaning little feet, which the human eye uses to form words easier than a san serif font, like Arial.
You might also notice that we do not put animated ads beside the news stories, and articles on the site. Why? Simply it is our experience that those animated ads make it harder for you to read the article online. For our advertisers, that is a major disadvantage in our view.
It means, in many cases, readers may block access on their computers for Java, or other animated ads. In other words that flashy looking ad ends up not being seen at all. For the reader that flashing animation makes if difficult to read the article. We certainly will accept animated ads, but we work to put them where they will not be a distraction.
For advertisers, we believe making a potential customer angry is hardly a positive way to build up a long-lasting relationship. On NNL, on average, 497 out of 500 readers leave the Java script running. In other words, we believe our strategy is working well.
Something else very different on NNL is that our readers tend to read a lot of pages on the site. Alexa.com reports that “Visitors view an average of 18.7 unique pages per day”. That is an incredible number. It is down however from where it was three months ago, when it was 28 unique pages per day. Our analysis of those figures come as more and more people across Northern Ontario have found NetNewsleger, and ended up reading a lot of pages on the site on their first visits. Often readers tell us they found something on the site that they didn’t know until they saw it online.
We also offer a lot of information on-board NetNewsledger. There is weather, lotto numbers, ships in port, Crimebeat, and Crimemap, all which allow you a one-stop portal for that information. More is yet to come as we are planning movie listings and movie reviews, restaurant reviews, and a far larger entertainment presence. As an aside, if you love movies and are interested in writing, we would love to talk!
Working with Shaw Cable, we are expanding our video coverage and have taken live-streaming to a whole new level in Thunder Bay. Our overall approach as NetNewsledger continues to evolve is that we continue to follow our “NASA approach”. That means everything is done live and in front of you. In addition, working with specific groups, like TB Paranormal, along with Shaw Cable, we will be bringing you nine more episodes over the next year as the team investigates Northwestern Ontario sites for possible paranormal activity. We have plans for more live-stream broadcasts, as varied as covering the North of Superior Karaoke Idol live from the Hodder, to political debates, meetings, and the Remembrance Day Services from Fort William Gardens.
Between www.fight.netnewsledger.com, games.netnewsledger.com, classified.netnewsledger.com, and several other new features which are in the works, the scope of material which will be of interest to you, our readers is going to be wide and fun, and entertaining too.
As we continue to move forward, very simply it is all thanks to you, our readers. It remains our pleasure to offer you news, information, insight, and entertainment, all served up with style.
James Murray
Chief Content Officer