Bricks & Clicks
The Rockford Register Star is more than a newspaper: the ink on print or the “bricks” in the News Tower. We’re a multimedia news and information company: the “clicks” on our Web site and the TV clips on WREX-13. This blog explains our fast-changing media environment and interacts with our readers to show how and why we do what we do. |
Add comment February 27th, 2008
on tuesday, we posted a story that the rock river valley blood center desperately needed donations.
jen bowman at the center told me today that she had a woman come in 20 minutes later because she saw it on rrstar.com. glad we can help you, our readers, help others!
3 comments February 27th, 2008
check out this interview with david folkenflik, a former newspaper reporter who made the leap to npr as a media correspondent.
it was a good reminder that the basics of journalism are the same, but the nuances of reporting for the web, radio and newspapers are so different.
like he mentions the quest for clean sound. as we’ve learned about video, we’ve struggled with the same thing, especially when it comes to the wind.
Add comment February 26th, 2008
because i like to cook, i write the food stories for rockford woman: i cook the recipes myself, and the photographer (amy j. van horn) and the designer (margo morgan) set the stage for photos with dishes, props and backdrops that we cobble together.
sometimes, this results in a photo studio that smells like onions for a day. or me getting carded at a grocery store for nonalcoholic margarita mix in the middle of the day (odd!).
if only we could have martha’s prop library!
Add comment February 25th, 2008
on thursday, eleanora smith, our head librarian at the register star, received a note from ken and barb hall of edwards apple orchard. they had asked permission to share rrs coverage of the january tornado during the north american farm direct marketers conference; there were 400 to 500 marketers in their session for the trade association. they shared photos and videos (like here and here), which drew a standing ovation and “some tears.”
Add comment February 25th, 2008
i ran out of time friday to mention this, but the release of the march/april issue marked rockford woman magazine’s first birthday. design director margo morgan took these quick shots of our awesome cake from costa confections in belvidere. it was yellow on top, chocolate on the bottom. yum!
From: Pollock, Jennie
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 11:06 AM
To: Rockford-All
Subject: happy birthday, rockford woman
it’s hard to believe: one year ago, few had ever heard of rockford woman when we launched our magazine by, for and about women of the rock river valley.
back then, we were thrilled to have 48 pages.
today, our march/april issue is 72 pages, and we only expect to grow more.
thanks to hard work across the building, rockford woman has been a smashing success, connecting with both readers and advertisers. I get phone calls, comments and emails pretty much every day.
consider this:
we have more than 200 subscribers.
we’ve featured the faces of more than 400 women.
we are available at more than 100 select locations.
we had 3,500 votes for rockford woman of the year and 2,200 entries for our christmas gift giveaway.
be proud!
Add comment February 22nd, 2008
Quick update: That lunar eclipse photo gallery I told you about yesterday got 65,665 page views yesterday. Total traffic on rrstar.com was 213,121 page views. That’s better than our average Monday traffic. (Mondays are typically the strongest traffic days on our site.)
Add comment February 21st, 2008
A story we posted previewing the yesterday’s lunar eclipse was our top story on rrstar.com. This morning, we followed up on our readers’ strong interest and posted a gallery with 31 photos. on that information and posted last night. So far today, the gallery has gotten more than 33,600 page views. In 30 seconds, we recorded 100 page views. More than 3,600 visits to that gallery. So that means each user is looking at about 10 photos. That’s wild. People love their full moons.
Add comment February 19th, 2008
I sent this e-mail to newsroom staffers today detailing Web traffic since the NIU shootings:
Breaking news drives traffic. We are nearing 1 million page views in 5.5 days.
Traffic on rrstar.com is at 940,269 page views (tracked from Feb. 14 through 1:55 p.m. today). Impressive.
If you haven’t taken a look at our special report, please do. There’s lots of good content there: Stories, photos, videos, condolences, headlines from around the world on NIU, Our NIU Alumni blog, audio of Blagojevich’s address and AP stuff (interactive timeline, graphic and videos).
Considering we weren’t alone covering this story, the traffic on our site is incredible.
Some highlights for you (bold numbers indicate NIU-specific traffic to the best of my knowledge):
Day 1, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 (50,000 page views, 9,500 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 215,102 page views
Previous Thursday traffic: 199,883 page views (we had an attorney gunned down the day before)
Average Thursday traffic: 150,000 page views
Figures: 36 updates from 3:33 p.m. to 10:03 p.m.
Day 2, Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 (100,000 page views, 61,300 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 243,494 page views
Previous Friday traffic: 160,570 page views
Average Friday traffic: 140,000 page views
Figures: 46 updates from 12:12 a.m. until 9:44 p.m.
Day 3, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008 (20,708 page views, 10,000 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 115,626 page views
Previous Saturday traffic: 111,394 page views (high because of attorney shooting)
Average Saturday traffic: 98,000 page views
Figures: 23 updates from 1:22 a.m. until 9:40 p.m.
Day 4, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008 (14,505 page views, 5,200 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 116,997 page views
Previous Sunday traffic: 109,888 page views (high because of attorney shooting)
Average Sunday traffic: 95,000 page views
Figures: 8 updates from 8:11 a.m. until 12:06 a.m.
Day 5, Monday, Feb. 18, 2008 (18,889 page views, 6,300 on photo gallery)
Total traffic: 155,892 page views
Previous Monday traffic: 158,220 page views
Average Monday traffic: 150,000 page views
Figures: 16 updates from 12:06 a.m. until 9:22 a.m. Feb. 19
1 comment February 15th, 2008
Space shuttle. Columbine. World Trade Center Towers. War in Iraq — one and two. Virginia Tech. Today, NIU. Countless horrors small and large between each staggering headline. Almost 40 years of human catastrophe define my newspaper career. I remember where I was with each. I remember how each newsroom smelled and where the broken chairs were. I remember the journalists with whom I shared the days and nights that stretched to weeks of tackling the next piece of news and wrestling it into something that made sense. They never did, of course; there’s no sense-making of the events that drive those iconic headlines. We simply kept going, doing what we do: gathering, sorting, selecting and sharing information. The media we use has changed. It’s not about the daily newspaper today. It’s the Web, and television, and video, and photo galleries, blogs and forums. Today it’s instant; forty years ago it was tomorrow’s newspaper and maybe an “extra” edition. These are immutable: Journalists push aside their hearts, their families, their lives and we work. Around the clock to do what we do. There is nothing but this: the story. And, this refrain: No. Not Here.
4 comments February 15th, 2008
sadly, you can’t turn on the radio, tv or computer without knowing that our area is the center of the world with the top story of the niu shootings.
at the newseum, you can see how front pages around the country and around the world played the story.
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