CityNews circulates the figures

Sorry for lack of response to your original question Kerces, only just got back from a trip to Sydney over the weekend.

I was making a bold educated guess that you are the editor of the UC rag given that her name looks similarly like something that could make ‘kerces’. I took it from a post you made earlier where you ranted about not being able to say too much on this site, so we could look for more information on said UC website, I followed that, and after reading the article, then looked up the staff photos.

I got SGS’s from when he posted on my blog, he has a photo (presumably of himself) attached to his blogspot nick.

I blame it on all those years working in Russell…

I guess male film maker…

An intersex space alien?

Well you’ll never guess what I am.

Well, either you said it on this site, or I made an assumption, but I always thought you were female Kerces

I’m also pretty sure of it. And I feel certain I’ve confirmed this some time ago too, though possibly it was before the old site died which would make it ancient history, right?

yeah, last I checked I’m a bio-female and although I haven’t checked, I’m pretty sure Kerces is one too.

Funny how names can be deceptive, eh? ‘Boy named Sue’ etc etc.

well AD’s a guy but Jey’s been commenting a lot lately.

However i do like the idea of having an air of cultured wisdom about me

And LG and AD from the fact that they appear to be the only regular female contributors to the site

Excuse me?

Whoops, the first link should point here

That 2CC logo was on my bag, and one of the staples ended up in my finger. The staples eventually fell out so the sign is retired and my finger is now better.
You would be better off recognising me from my photo on this page, but I can bring 2CC material on request, and if my radio is with me it should be easy to spot me.

I’ll recognise Maelinar from the medals hanging from above his shirt-pocket.
And JB from the coat and hat.
Thumper from the cricket bat.
Kerces from the look of cultured wisdom.
SGS from the 2CC logo he wears around his neck.
num nuts from the monkey bike.
Patrick Carr from the black rubber trench-coat.
-And LG and AD from the fact that they appear to be the only regular female contributors to the site.

You’re lucky, November 27 is just before I have to disappear to Sydney for a day and need to make sure I get enough sleep the day before and have time to deal with the photo’s and incoherent pen and paper writings the next day.

Hang on, then you would have to meet me…does that make you unlucky??? Nah, I’m happy to come, provided there is coffee or I can bring my own…or a cake. coffee or cake, preferably both are easy ways to ensure I attend.

Well, luckily you’re single, so this shouldn’t be a problem

Actually, for the record, I’m rather happily un-single right now.

But I have high hopes the new object of my affection won’t be organising a boycott this time around.

i shall arrive by monkey bike.

I’m happy to come along as long as it is planned in advance!

i’m trying to work out if although I’m pretty confident of SGS and Kerces and Thumper atm means i should be worried…

I’ll be along to place the faces, although I’m pretty confident of SGS and Kerces and Thumper atm…

Well as long as it doesn’t conflict with anything else on the agenda anyway 🙂

Well, luckily you’re single, so this shouldn’t be a problem, should it?

And the 27th of November is a Sunday this year, so it seems pretty worthwhile. Although in late November, any joint with a reasonable outdoors area would work.

Kerces got the correct surviving first post.

but the site went live on 27 November 2000.

A Sunday afternoon in the Phoenix might be appropriate (as a homage to Patrick Carr) but the readership have not covered themselves in glory when it comes to turning up to our functions.

Last one we got ralph (who has been very quiet lately) and Roslyn Dundas along. (although it was complicated by my girlfriend of the time organising a boycott of the event.

I like parties!

Terubo,

There were two others who helped us set up the original RiotACT. Motorcycleboy, who was involved in some of our early discussions but then ran off to italy to get married, and Corty who was responsible for coding most of the original site & moved on to other interests.

The rest of us have stuck around to torment the people of canberra with our drivel.

As for RiotACT’s birthday, Kerces guess would be pretty close. There were a few stories before that one on Nov 28 2000, but they were us stuffing around trying to get the site to work.
we would probably have to hack the old database to get the exact first story, but rest assured RiotACT is indeed 5 years old.

I vote we hold a collection for Mr Face so we can fly him in and make him cry as we angle grind a whole heap of monkey bikes and call him nasty names.

I wouldn’t be so bold…but anything for a party. The originators of this august organ should determine when & where…
How about a RiotACT Awards night?
-Best writing, best rant, most obscure photo, best contribution from a local pollie, best poem, most besieged personality, best Patrick Carr, etc etc.

so you must be volunteering to plan the big celebration huh terubo, seeing as you brought it up?

I guess Jazz, JB, NTP, Kramer and Che would know, to judge from the above.
Anyone else claim responsibility?

I presume so; those old site dates frequently frustrate me too but I have been told this year is indeed the site’s fifth anniversary.

Kerces, was that 2000?

Terubo, I just had a look and this is the earliest story I can find on the old site (i’m glad to see the quality of writing had improved no end guys — seriously). So I guess that would make RA’s birthday on November 28 which is unfortunately a Monday this year.

Pitchforks with the words ‘Riot ACT’ printed on them strategically placed along Northbourne Avenue one morning ?

So when is RiotACT’s 5th birthday, and how to celebrate? (Apart from burning down the CN office).

christmas cards? i don’t think i’ve ever sent any of those so i wouldn’t feel left out if i were you

bugger, sorry che. i thought that didn’t look right when i wrote it but couldn’t work out where

Oi, just because I wasn’t in Canberra when we started doesn’t mean I wasn’t in at the ground floor Jazz

I was there at the angle grinder and curry party

next thing you know you’ll be leaving me off your Christmas card list

Yeah, OK, fair enough…I was bored…still, you get far more visitors than I do (and deservedly so)

your numbers are a bit out sam, on a busy day we bump around 700 visitors a day. (and 3,000 page views)

hate to break the news to the old style actual paper media barons, their star is fading fast, even fairfax circulation is dropping. Welcome to the website, blog and podcast democratisation of news. Didn’t Rupert M decide to put US$3 Billion into his internet business so he can keep making money.

Sounds to me like the City News is trying to win the battle of last loser standing but they haven’t worked that out yet. Better not tell them, it will be funnier that way.

Jazz don’t forget Che and two who are no longer with us (not dead just not interested). I’m just glad the readership is now bringing the news to us. Always the idea and far more interesting the the stuff I dragged together.

I also use webstat on my website, but I don’t come anywhere near 20,000 page views per month, I average about 1,300 from 348 visitors. Unfortunately a lot of my visitors seem to come from virtually unrelated Google searches, and me, and a couple regular visitors. But my website mainly consists of my babblings about everything and nothing, so I’m not complaining.

I guess the important thing is that the RiotACT team have grown a successful website containing a lot of news and opinions on Canberra issues by Canberra people, which is something that I haven’t seen done elsewhere. (CT Have Your Say doesn’t count…people can’t submit articles there.)

not a bad estimate SGS. if we thought that we’d ever get to those numbers or even had a formula for calculating it when we JB, myself, NTP and kramer started this thing almost 5 years ago we would have been pretty excited. Its soo much better now that those 4500 visits aren’t made by the 4 of us.

Dagnammit, JB beat me to it, but it looks like my babbling wasn’t far off…

Kerces, assuming that most months the 20000 page views is reached in 7 days, and assuming that in those seven days the average viewer has 10 page views (yes, I am making this up on the spot…probably the same as CityNews stats), that creates 285 visitors per day. If I assume that the visitor rate is consistent throughout the month, but half of the visitors each day have previously visited RiotACT that month, then we have 285 visitors on the first day and another 142 or so each day thereafter. Therefore in a 31 day month RiotACT would have approx 4545 unique visiotrs per month.

That’s not a huge number, but considering that RiotACT is squarely Canberra oriented, and there are 350,000 or so people in Canberra (from memory) you are reaching 1.3% of the population, which isn’t bad for an online publication run by volunteers, and frequented by opinionated persons like myself.

Of course, I could just be babbling again.

I think their “Circulation” is entirely based on how many they can print.

When you get paid on the basis of how many you print that becomes a question of “How many can we jam in any place that doesn’t complain”.

Anyway from 1-10 October we had 4,901 visitors of which 1,847 came in on search queries. (although nearly 300 of that number were searching for RiotACT directly)

So well upwards of 3,000 motivated readers.

If people had to go and get CityNews I question if they would reach that number.

Please don’t knock the city news it’s advertorials are informative and well paid for 🙂

Bonfire, may I direct you attention here and here (the ones on their website are correct if they’ve updated the site since July 05).

citynews is shite! i only read it when im the first at the pub and im waiting for other people.

id seriously question the way they measure readership and their definition of circulation.

i wonder what the ad rates card says ?

LG: I was going to say something of the same extent…how do they measure circulation, by how much they ‘dump’ at each location?

Sam, the referrers reports that cause so much hilarity each month are produced after 20,000 page views since the start of the month.

Note this does not mean 20,000 unique visitors, but rather how many times the articles have been looked at (including, I think, multiple viewings of the same article by the same reader). However it does give some indication of the readership, particularly when the 20,000 page views are passed generally within about a week.

JB does also get reports on the number of unique viewers per month, but I guess it’s up to him to reveal those figures or not.

And also remember the RiotACT is not (yet) a mainstream news source in Canberra, unlike the Canberra Times and unlike what CityNews likes to think of themselves as.

(And I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’ve got any of this wrong)

or they are looking for naked horses…

Perhaps RiotACT should release its visitor numbers and compare that to the circulation numbers…the main difference is people who visit RiotACT probably read bits of it.

City News are about as helpful as a spotlights on a blinds mans dog.

That’s because they go into offices and dump six copies in each one. The fact no one reads them is irrelevant. As far as they are concerned, they have been circulated! They used to leave 20 copies in a building I used to work in, and we would throw them in the recycling immediately. No one wanted them, because of their “crapness”.