I’m frequently asked how many people read Village 14 (as opposed to the much smaller number of people who comment). Generally speaking, I don’t pay a lot of attention to our traffic statistics. For me the success of this site is not measured by how many people come here but the quality of the conversations and the fact that everyone here is really passionate about Newton and Newton politics.
But I found this statistic from our October Google analytics report to be gratifying:
Village 14 visitors spent an average of 3:45 on the site during a single session.
The same reports tells us that Village 14 had 21,924 site visitors and 50,641 page views last month. Our readership was highest on Oct. 21, lowest on Oct. 28 and that the vast majority (76 percent) of our participants are coming to us through their iPhones.
But to me, the most interesting statistic is the time spent on site. This stat suggests to me that we really are reading what each other have to say.
I wonder how the readership statistic compares with the Tab distribution list. I know it’s apples and oranges and hard to differentiate…we might have 100 people visiting the site multiple times and the Tab may be delivered to all Newton residents and not read at all by the “subscriber”. It seems to me that the near “22,000 site visitors” number shows an incredible interest in several changes in communications: 1) we offer immediate updates on action in Newton (from problems on the ball field to fires to votes at City Hall) and 2) we offer developing thoughts on many issues weeding out many biases to eek out a kind of adversarial truth (much like our courts were designed to do.) We are not perfect…but I think we are better than most at doing this! Kudos to us!
It would be interesting to find out what topics/threads capture readers’ attention. I definitely check here for immediate updates, as Sallee mentioned, and interesting events going on in the city (thank you, Jerry!). As for issues the site addresses, I pick and choose. School issues clearly capture my attention. Snow threads? Not so much. No judgement about which issue is more important – just an example of how different readers may use the site and respond to topics. I also skip over most posts that are more than 2 paragraphs long because they’re just too time consuming.
I read articles here on an almost daily basis; comment only rarely (usually because one of the others has already voiced my thoughts on the matter).