Light-up McIntosh December 15
Light-up McIntosh will begin at the Civic Center at 6:30 p.m. The event will host Santa Clause and an area choir from six local churches will sing.
05.22.07 -- Editor's Note: Blog logs 10,000th visitor
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
By CHER PHILLIPS
The McIntosh Mirror logged visitor number 10,000 yesterday.
I started the blog last May but didn't begin counting visitors until July 1. According to Site Meter, the blog logged its 10,000 official visitor. I think this is accurate. Site Meter went down earlier this spring. But when it came back online, the logged visits caught back up.
The Mirror uses three different counters. I used Activemeter to back up Site meter when it failed this spring. Together, all three tell me information about the visitors, the length of their visits and how many pages viewed.
According to Google Analytics, 20 percent of the visitors to the blog in the last six months have been new, or first time users. This means that the bulk of the readers here are those who come back again and again.
One report shows that 20 percent of the Mirror's visitors in the last year only logged onto the blog once. These often are readers who click in from other blogs on Google Blogger or those who find the blog through a search engine, the most popular referring search engine for the blog is Google and then AOL. The majority of the blog readers regularly check in -- 28 percent have logged on between 26-100 times in last six months. And 27 percent of the blog's visitors check back more than 100 times in the past few months.
One of the questions I get fairly often is, "Do you know who wrote that comment?" No, I really don't -- unless people sign their names. On one report, I can see partial IP address and which Internet service providers or networks people use when they log onto the blog. But this doesn't tell me who they are or if they made comments. In fact, it tells be very little about the individuals but more about from where people are reading the blog. The top three networks that log onto the blog are AOL, Alltel and Windstream. This tells me that the bulk of the blog readers are local, which makes sense given this is a hyperlocal site.
But, we do get readers from all over the world. About 50 logged in from Europe in the last six months and another 50 from Asia.
Some IP addresses have company names on them. For instance, in December, someone from the Chicago Tribune checked the blog several times one week. I also see visitors from papers like the New York Times every so often, as well as the local mainstream media. This is consistent with some of the points I've seen in reading about blogging and the media. Blogs can be a source for story ideas for reporters.
Most people who read the Mirror click on about two pages per visit. We've never had a day in which no one checks the blog. Sometimes, the visitors have dipped down to 10, but other times they've hit as many as 60 in a day. It just depends on what's going on in town. Ironically, the traffic on the blog increases the most when an issue is being discussed in the forums, or comment sections.
I thought everyone might enjoy hearing some of the stats that made up those 10,000 visits.
posted by Cher @ 1:14 AM,
2 Comments:
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At May 29, 2007 11:37 AM ,
said...
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toot toot!
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At May 30, 2007 8:40 PM ,
said...
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well done cherr,,,,,,,,very well done glass
Editor
Editor and Publisher:
I'm Cher From McIntosh, FL I'm a graduate student at the University of Florida working on a master's degree in Mass Communication. While I was finishing my undergrad degree in journalism last year, I reported on McIntosh, Fla. for an in-depth reporting class. I figured that the reporting and the public record files should go somewhere people can access them. Reporters don't report to keep the information they find to themselves. Some of that reporting is included here in a forum that allows response. McIntosh suffers because with no news coverage, the local government and the rumor mill have too much potential to run rampant over residents. I moved to McIntosh in the fall of 1999. My profile
About This Blog
The primary purpose of this blog is to accurately reflect what happens in town public meetings and dispel rumors. I record the meetings and make them available for download. One of the goals of this blog is to offer residents a place to voice opinions. The comments, views and opinions expressed there are not necessarily those of the editor.
