I've written before about the most fascinating -- and certainly the most scary -- part of the newspaper business: our presence on the Internet. It's such an evolving story, I thought it might be time to revisit it with some interesting tidbits.
The Pioneer Journal's Web site, www.wadenapj.com , continues to grow in popularity in just about every measurable way. More people from more places are spending more time on the site. In some cases, a certain story is almost assuredly read more times on the Internet edition than the same story in print.
We have a number of tools to track how readers react to different elements of our Web site. Don't worry, all of our tracking is completely anonymous. In other words, we don't know that it's Charlie Brown from Sebeka clicking on a certain story. But we know how many people from Sebeka or Canada are clicking, and a little about their preferences.
Here are some interesting things we found:
- Crime stories are still the most read. In fact, when you look at the top 20 most read stories in the history of our Web site, 17 of them are crime-related.
- Certain stories tend to get you, the reader, motivated to comment on what we've written, or the story in general. Anyone who is a registered user can comment on any story immediately. We have, in some sensitive cases (especially those that involve children), shut off the comment section because of vulgarity or other rough content. But generally, you get to speak your mind. It's semi-anonymous. For instance, if I posted a comment, it would attach "Steve S., Wadena" to the comment.
- Google offers even deeper tracking of the users (but again, no personal information is collected.) We can see the cities that use our site the most, how much time the average reader spends on the site, and even what screen resolution the monitors are using.
- Which city has the most PJ online readers. Did you guess Wadena? Nope, but that's number two. Minneapolis has the most readers of our Web site.
- We're starting to integrate more photo galleries on our Web site. So while you may see a black-and-white photo or two of an event in the paper, where space is precious and expensive, you may see 10 more photos from that event online, in glorious color. The photo galleries, as we call them, have become one of the most popular areas of the site. As our online readership grows, we'll be doing even more of that.
- Some of you may have noticed audio clips on our Web site, or even a narrated slide show. We're doing more of that now, and may incorporate more local video in the near future. Right now, readers can see streaming videos from all over the world on our Web site through an agreement with the Associated Press.
- We're still looking for local bloggers. If you have something to say on just about any topic, we can help you get a blog set up -- never at any cost to you. Not only that, we'll help promote it through our own site to let people know when you've updated. Whether you want to write a daily rant on politics or a monthly update about your quilting club or one-act play team, call me and I'll help you get set up for free. (Steve at (218) 631-2561.)
- We and our partner newspapers just started a new hunting, fishing and outdoors site. It's just getting its legs under it, but it's pretty cool. Check it out at www.northlandoutdoors.com.
