Evanston Now reached a milestone at the end of January.
Evanston Now reached a milestone at the end of January.
Google Analytics data shows we served more than 1.5 million page views over the preceding 12 months. That’s up 43 percent from the similar period a year earlier.
And Google Analytics also reports we had more than 20,000 unique visitors in January, making Evanston Now, based on publicly available traffic data, by far the most widely read local news site last month in Evanston.
Thanks for being part of the growing community of Evanstonians who rely on Evanston Now for local news.
We also topped the 1,000 mark in the number of folks following Evanston Now on Twitter this week. If you’d like to get our headlines on Twitter, you can sign up here.
And we welcomed a new advertiser to the site this week — the Evanston Athletic Club, located at 1723 Benson Ave. If you own an Evanston business and would like to reach local residents with your message, you can find out more about advertising on Evanston Now here.
Keep on keeping on!
Keep up the great work, Bill! Congratulations.
Congratulations, Bill!
Evanston Now is a useful and vital news source, as well as a well-used community sounding board. May the best be yet to come.
Maybe not the end for newspapers?
EvanstonNow harks back to the news media tradition (think Hearst and McCormick) in which the public had a variety of offerings to choose from and each had a particular voice with which it approached the news. Editors openly held an opinion about the way things should be and used their publications to push it. This was succeeded by the supposed impartiality of the old TV news programs (think Walter Cronkite) until Fox News returned to the old partisan approach and grabbed viewership as a result.
To have many voices is good. To have voices swayed by the advertising that supports them is bad.
Congratulations to Bill and the crew at EN who have put lots of effort into this "paper". Everyone in Evanston benefits from the recharge for local news that has come with EN and the Roundtable.
But, I must add that editorial boldness should be matched with comment boldness. It would help if the word "anonymous" were removed from the default position in the comment form. Even the small effort required to type in the word would probably result in reducing the flood of anonymity here. As I've admitted to Bill, anonymity can have its place, but what should be a vibrant forum of local personalities is a fog of unknowns. One easily tires of reading text for which writers will take no responsibility.
My second suggestion is to provide email followup. This is common practice with online forums and allows one, when posting a comment, to be notified of followup comments. It's a waste of time to have to check back to see if anyone responds when a notification could be done automatically. Of the many forums in which I participate, EN is the only one without this feature. Here's hoping for 2012!
IMO, this worry over
IMO, this worry over anonymous is unfounded. What matters is what people say and they way they say it. If all the anonymous posters amounted to nothing more than virulent attacks on people, public or private, than that would be a problem. But that has not been the case with EN, and that is why people read and contribute to EN, anonymous or not.
I post occasionally, with anonymity, and would never contribute if I had to use my name, for variad reasons that are mine. I also feel my posts, while of an opinion, are respectful and contributory, as many of the other anonymous posters have been and I'm sure Bill knows that.
I have read many of your posts, some I agree, some not so much, but the bottom line is this. I don't know you, have no idea who you are, and frankly, with all due respect, couldn't care less. Your name has no meaning to me, no face, no recognition, but your comments are cognent and contributory and that is all that matters.
It's not the name, it's the opinions, the discussions, and I have faith that Bill moderates the discussion to keep it civil, and thankfully, anonymous. Just my anonymous viewpoint.
A milestone
Bill…congratulations on reaching this milestone. It is attributable of course to your tireless effort and fine reporting.
Best News Source for Evanston
Bill,
I do not know how you can have enough time to produce all the content and quality.
You can take a bow.
Love Evanston Now!!
Big Congrats!! You're my regular nightly read before bed. And personally I love the ability to post anon. In some ways, I wish they all were. I'm guilty of sometimes skipping over someone's comment because 'I already know what it's going to say' – I know…sad, but true!
Well done!
Good job Mr. Smith! I check EvanstonNow every morning, and of course I follow on twitter.
Congrats!
Bill, Congratulations! Nice to see you being rewarded with new advertisers for the tireless work you do keeping us all informed.