Above: Is it any surprise to hear the Swap Shop was the most commented-on story of 2011? (photo contributed by Eric Tapper)
I owe you all a tremendous amount of thanks for another banner year here at My Southborough. Traffic has grown steadily since I started blogging in August of 2008, and this year was no exception. As the year draws to a close, I thought I’d share some statistics to help you get a sense of the community you’ve helped create here on the blog.
In 2011, more than 80,000 people visited My Southborough a combined total of more than 350,000 times. Pageviews surpassed 780,000, a 46% increase over 2010.
Visitors came from 152 different countries, with most being from the United States (no surprise), followed by Canada and the United Kingdom. U.S. visitors hailed mainly from Massachusetts (again, no surprise) with New York, California, and Rhode Island also boasting solid My Southborough contingents.
Fourteen percent of the visits in 2011 were from mobile devices, up from only 5% in 2010, which suggests 2012 might be the time to build in better mobile support for My Southborough!
In 2011 I published a mind-boggling (if I do say so myself) 1,400 posts. You all responded with an even more mind-boggling 3,700 comments.
And what were all those stories you were commenting on? Here’s are the top 10 most commented-on posts in 2011.
- Breaking news: Southborough’s Swap Shop to close for good on December 1 – 121 comments
- Chief: We’re playing Russian roulette with the taxpayers – 108 comments
- School committee wants to add a teacher, town faces $1M budget shortfall – 99 comments
- Gobron: Reducing budget by 1% would result in loss of up to 11 teachers – 96 comments
- LIVE BLOG: Hurricane Irene heads to Southborough – 91 comments
- LIVE BLOG: Get the latest on the October snow storm here – 58 comments
- POLL: Would a secret ballot change the way you vote at Town Meeting? – 52 comments
- Selectmen consider increasing the cost of a Transfer Station sticker – 51 comments
- Rooney asks St. Mark’s and Fay to contribute more – 49 comments
- School committee trims K-8 budget request by $420K – 47 comments
Look for my take on the top Southborough stories of 2011 on the blog tomorrow.
Susan, I am not surprised that your site has grown exponentially in popularity and credibility as a medium of news dissemination.
The reality is that understanding government information, and thus becoming informed, is not an easy task. Neither is creating an effective program between government and resident that can meaningfully inform the public about the inner workings of government. Your efforts have created such a program.
Your site allows anyone with a phone line to become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther that it could from any soapbox. You have galvanized a new community of public speakers. You afford residents who want to participate in government the ability to go online and engage with their elected officials. Your site improves deliberation by allowing for more residential input, as well as empowers the individual who would never go to a town meeting to participate.
Democracy is best served by representing a broad-based group of speakers. In such a short time, you have galvanized a new community of public speakers, as political participation is now able to flow from the keyboard. This electronic activism is essential to our form of democratic self-government.
A truly representative model of democracy should thrive with this medium and is ill advised not to take advantage of your site as a medium for political discussion. The fact that active participation on your site can potentially change a government policy or sway a vote is perhaps the highest compliment that can be bestowed by those who aim to further representative government.
Again, thank you and Happy New Year to all.