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Food for Thought: A News Cafe’ - Third quarter report
Food for Thought: A News Cafe has just completed its third quarter. (You can catch up with the previous reports if you missed the first and second ones.)
FFT’s growth reminds me of what it must feel like for an astronaut to experience the G-force as the rocket lifts off and picks up speed.
Nine months ago Doni sat down to pen her first blog after being unceremoniously canned from the newspaper.
Fast-forward nine months. This modest blog, now affectionately know as Food for Thought: A News Café, is an important community resource for news, commentary, entertainment and humor. It provides a forum for 44 writers and 16 bloggers to share their talents and insights. The number of contributors is growing daily.
Food for Thought has become a cherished online gathering place for those who live in - or are interested in - the north state.
Those of you who are regular readers know that August was an important month for Food for Thought. Doni partnered with friend Kelly Brewer to create Food for Thought: A News Cafe.
They were joined online by such high-profile newspaper talent as Jim Dyar, arts and entertainment editor and writer; Phil Fountain, artist and cartoonist; and Thom Gabrukiewicz, outdoors editor and writer. Other former newspaper professionals also became part of the FFT family: Linda Woodcook, advertising sales representative; Shannon Calder, book reviewer, and Lauren Brooks, former cops reporter/now Chico ER arts editor.
As important as these wonderful additions were to the expansion and growth of Food for Thought: A News Cafe, that’s only part of the story. As Kelly says, “Food for Thought is greater than the sum of its parts.”
What we are seeing here is nothing less than the future of how members of a community will connect in a larger forum. It’s a loosely moderated place to exchange ideas and news about our community. It’s a place to come for stories, photos, press releases, death notices and government meeting agendas. It’s a place to check road conditions, weather, national, international and business news. It has a forum for readers to bring up topics that they believe are important. It has an interactive community calendar to keep us up on what’s going on around town. It has local advertisers because business people understand that Food for Thought attracts the kind of community that they want to be associated with. In short, Food for Thought, in nine months, has become the destination of choice for those who want an open, honest, civil representation of this complex place we call home.
The last three months have shown a fundamental change in the look and feel of Food for Thought: A News Cafe. It is a much deeper, richer website with more voices, more categories and more use of technology. We will continue to expand. Our goal is to continue to bring you more local talent. Some will be professional journalists, some will be talent from other fields, and some will not have a background in writing but will have compelling stories to share.
This quarter’s statistics show some impressive increases in readership, manifested in the numbers presented in the graphs above.
“Unique Visitors” are the number of computers that have logged on to view the site. That number increased from 10,635 to 12,871, an increase within this quarter of 21 percent.
“Number of visitors” is the total number of times donigreenberg.com was logged onto for each month. That number expanded from 28,585 to 43,273; an increase within this quarter of 51 percent.
Then there are “Page Views” - that represents the number of web pages that were viewed in a given month. In August, that number grew from 225,169 to 657,651, a mind-boggling 192 percent increase within this latest quarter.
Of the 12,871 unique visitors who came to Food for Thought: A News Cafe in August, more than 81 percent came directly to our site. They weren’t baited to come here with key words. They didn’t stumble upon us using a search engine. They either typed in donigreenberg.com or they came here because they had Food for Thought: A News Cafe saved as a favorite. This was further verified by the fact that, on average, readers viewed more than 15 pages per visit.
So there you go. Food for Thought: A News Cafe’ is growing at a very healthy clip. It’s a locally made “wesite” that’s a tribute to everyone who comes here.
Our third-quarter numbers bear testimony to this site’s popularity and untapped potential.
Thank you for helping Food for Thought reach this exciting stage of its development. We hope you’ll continue being part of this ride as we reach even greater heights.
666 views
I just have to share….
REDDING.COM a staggering4 MILLION PAGE VIEWS IN AUGUST (4.5 MILLION IN JULY)
mind-blowing259,000 UNIQUE VISITORS IN AUGUST (360,000 IN JULY)
WHERE ARE PEOPLE GOING TO GET THEIR LOCAL NEWS…..REDDING.COM
TRUSTED SOURCE OF THE RECORD SEARCHLIGHT
Still a favorite news source, obviously
Doni - you are doing a great job with your website! Keep it up!
Go, dudes!
Hi Roni,
Thank you for sharing. From what I understand the numbers you’re putting out for redding.com are probably fairly accurate. Let’s look at those numbers shall we. 259,000-360,000 unique visitors. I’m fairly certain that the local area would have enough readers to provide just a very small fraction of those numbers (Including people outside the area who have friends or relatives here.) What the numbers tell me is that redding.com is very efficient at driving traffic to their site using search engines. Without making a quality judgement about redding.com, I will say driving traffic to a site using search engines has very little to do with the quality of content of a website.
The other problem this presents is that local advertisers pay redding.com per-impression. So if thousands of visitors who aren’t local are driven to redding.com by search engines a local heating and air conditioning advertiser would be paying for viewers who are not potential clients. Probably not a good use of their advertising dollars. The last thing I would say is to be careful drawing the conclusion that more views equates to a better quality or trusted website. Those two are very different and the correlation is not that direct.
Roni, Thanks for reading and commenting. I truly wish the Record Searchlight and redding.com well. there is plenty of room for many voices.
Bruce
Dear Roni - Thanks to you, I will now boycott Redding.com as much as I possibly can. Redding.com is certainly not where I go to get local news.
I posted this in both the General section of Forums and in Why Spotlight the Record Searchlight. This seems to be a proper place to post it also.
“The Record Searchlight announced that it will no longer deliver to Siskiyou County, and we just received a notification that it is also abandoning Eastern Shasta County. I must admit that it is no real loss since the newspaper has been on such a downhill slide since Kelly and Doni left, but it was nice to have something to read at breakfast. Our options are to have it delivered by mail (for us, a 10-mile roundtrip to the Post Office and we wouldn’t have it until afternoon and not at all on Sunday); subscribe to the upcoming e-edition in PDF format; read the current redding.com edition; or none of the above. We’ve pretty well chosen none of the above. Such a loss to us long-time subscribers that the Searchlight has taken such a dive since the administration has changed. Apparently they really don’t want to be in the news business. But they are certainly doing their part to keep the East Indians employed.”
It’s hardly an either/or proposition. Welcome to the world wide WEB. It’s a web made of many contributions. Redding.com is hoping to find their post-newsprint place in the texture of the web, and so is NewsCafe. I’m happy to for both. And for other voices as well. Some we have not heard from yet, no doubt. These are good times. Congratulations to News Cafe on your healthy growth! May you live long and prosper, as they say. I look forward to you every day.
I am honored to be a part of this.
I agree with Thom G, I’m honored to be here. I also would like to echo the comments of those who point out that on the Internet it’s not an either/or situation. I would assume that many of Redding.com’s readers also visit Food for Thought: A News Café and vice versa. That’s a good thing.
There is something I would like to point out, FFT is doing remarkably well in the “stickiness” department. People who surf here are reading over 15 pages per visit and staying on the site well over the 30 second average of many comparable websites. So, they’re finding lots of local news and entertainment. That’s great for the audience as well as advertisers.
Again, good luck to the fine folks at Redding.com. They do what they do, we do what we do. There’s room in this town for both a corporate entity and a locally owned and operated online enterprise.
One-third of the visitors to redding.com are subscribers checking to see why their home-delivered paper is late.
Congratulations on an unpresidented third quarter. I salute those who have step out of the box and taken on such a frightening adventure and done so well. Your hard work and professionalism shines and it shows in all of your efforts. I wish onlty the best of luck to you and look forward to being a daily visitor.
I must admit I do read the Record Searchlight in the morning as I multi task in the restroom, it is a great bathroom read and is timed perfectly.
Best of wishes and to growth, growth and more growth.
Slow Regards,
Duane
Congratulations to Food For Thought: A News Cafe!
I am so honnored to be a small part of this amazing group!
You are all doing a fantastic job!
Great stuff. Of all the stats, I’m most impressed with are the highly educated/affluent demographic served here. Check out quantcast.com and compare for yourself.
ack, I can’t edit! That should read: “Of all the stats, I’m most impressed with the highly educated/affluent demographic served here.”
The Record Searchlight pays wages to people who work there. Does Food for Thought? - or are you just volunteers with other means of support? I don’t know how you can compare yourself to the RS. Food For Thought only has about one new article per day…..and you glean a lot of your content from the newspaper. One last thing - please quit blaming Record Searchlight management for the tragedy that has befallen newspapers all across the country. We will NOT be better off when the press is silenced, probably within the next 5 years. Folks, this is a tragedy - not something to gloat about. Thank you.
Helen,
FFT had 154 articles in the month of August — ~5 per day. Many times the lead story is in place while 3 or 4 other stories come through so you might try clicking “recent” to view the latest columns.
Helen, a couple of things to consider. I do not think everybody is gloating. I know some folks that worked at the Searchlight who lost their jobs, I don’t think any one of them wants to be un-employed. I also believe that SOME, not all, of the problems the Searchlight is having is the papers own fault. As I have continued to read the paper I have seen a continued downward slide in the reporting and journalism. I have seen spotty delivery service and a lack of concern from SOME of the people I have talked to about their lack of service. Why would I want to continue to support a business that showns no concern for me! You want my money act like you care about me and my concerns. The current administration continues to act as if they don’t care about Redding and the surronding area. The people that have left the paper have done so because that were told to leave. Many of those people had been there for many years and really enjoyed their jobs. It probally hurts them to see what has happened to the paper. For many it was a labor of love snatched away from them leaving them without a source of income for their families. I say if they want to take a dig every now and then GO FOR IT! To be able to vent can be healthy if done so in a construtive manner. I also believe the paper created this mess and they need to take their hits.
A thought I have about the web sight. I tend to type in a name in my address bar to see if that company or city has a web sight. I went to Florence, OR with my wife a few months ago and I did not use Google I just typed in Florence.com into my address bar. How many times has a person from outside of Redding done the same thing that I have in search of a city web page but instead got the Record Searchlight? Does that count?
One final, thought I think many of us who visit FFT do so because we enjoy reading the articles from people that we have come to enjoy reading. I know that is why I come to this sight. Heck that is why I went to Redding.com
I, for one, am not blaming the RS for The Death Of The Newspaper In America. I blame myself. When I first started working at the newspaper 8 years ago, it was a healthy, robust business. By the time I left it had been reduced to mere husk of its former self and was rapidly sinking into the abyss.
I’m sorry.
Love Food For Thought, and check with it daily. You are doing a great job. It is the R/S loss with Doni and Kelli gone. However, I believe we must keep the daily newspaper going. The press is very important to the community.
Excellent digits. Write on!
Say, there might well be a correlation between Phil Fountain’s recklessly thoughtful cartooning and the RS descent into mediocrity. I never thought of that. We all turned a blind eye to the corrosive effects of your subversive humor. Shame on you Phil.
Apology accepted, though. Hee.
Now that we know what happened to them, let’s just move on, shall we?. Let’s all just be better than that.
Check facts. Write to a higher standard in search of a better community. Read and edit before publishing. Speak truth to power. That sort of thing.
I think there may be some pent up demand for higher journalistic standards. Maybe a rising tide will lift all boats. There’s only one way to find out.