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On the slowest day in the short life of Last Best News, just 131 people visited the site. That was on Saturday, Feb. 15, two weeks after the site launched on Feb. 1.<\/p>\n
That depressing day was followed by a few more slow Saturdays, which convinced me that people simply don\u2019t spend much time on the Internet on that day of the week.<\/p>\n
That theory was exploded on Saturday, April 26, when 5,101 people visited the site, making it the busiest day in the short life of Last Best News.<\/p>\n
My own feelings about what I had done \u2014 abandoned a 34-year newspaper career that brought in a decent paycheck every two weeks, to start an online news business with uncertain prospects \u2014 have varied just as wildly.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Ed Kemmick<\/p><\/div>\n
Some days this feels like the best idea I ever had, other days like the worst. I hate allowing \u00a0my outlook to be governed by Google Analytics, which provided the statistics mentioned above, but it seems to be an inevitable consequence of running a Web-based operation.<\/p>\n
I bring all this up by way of noting that Last Best News turned 3 months old on Thursday. When I worked for the Billings Gazette, we always heard quarterly reports from the managers of each division of the newspaper \u2014 the newsroom, advertising, circulation, etc.<\/p>\n
So consider this the first quarterly report from the combined divisions of Last Best News.<\/p>\n
The first thing I would like to bring to your attention is the \u201cSign up for email updates<\/a>\u201d box on the left side of the home page. We were a little slow in getting this going, but the updates are now being sent out to a few hundred subscribers every Thursday.<\/p>\n This is an excellent way of keeping up with Last Best News. You just give us your email address \u2014 which we won\u2019t use for any nefarious purposes \u2014 and we\u2019ll send you a weekly recap of the top stories from this site.<\/p>\n Whether you subscribe to the email update or not, please keep in mind that access to Last Best News is always free \u2014 no expense, no hassle, no online surveys, no pop-up or pull-down ads. And because all our advertisers are real businesses from around these parts, your eyes will not be troubled by looking at those awful ads you see everywhere else \u2014 you know, hideous cures for a beer gut and mind-blowing \u201crevelations\u201d about Obama.<\/p>\n Also, please note that we have done away with the Letters to the Editor box and replaced it with a listing of entertainment and other events provided by Billings365.com<\/a>. Letters to the editor seem meaningless when the publication is strictly online, and a listing of community events seemed vital. It was an easy call.<\/p>\n So, besides our busiest and our slowest days, how are we doing? Quite well, thank you. We\u2019ve been averaging about 750 visits a day and we\u2019ve hosted a steady stream of reader comments on the site itself and on our Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s probably worth noting, too, that last week we surpassed 2,000 \u201clikes\u201d on our Facebook page. It\u2019s still a bit bewildering for someone who began his career on a manual typewriter, but in a world increasingly measured by Facebook likes, I have to say that I have been pleased and honored by all that Facebook attention.<\/p>\n Other statistics: By my count, in three months I have written 59 stories, columns and book reviews, in addition to 22 Last Best Blog posts, and I also published a couple of my stand-alone photo essays.\u00a0In that same time, various other people have contributed 20 stories, columns and guest editorials.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re wondering what brought in that record number of readers last Saturday, it was my story about plans to build the biggest house<\/a> in Billings. On that very slow day in February, I posted nothing.<\/p>\n So, what we learn from this is that people love stories about big houses and don\u2019t like nothing. I should set up shop as a newspaper consultant, eh? Regular readers of Last Best News and the Billings Outpost, an independent weekly newspaper published by David Crisp, will have noticed that David and I have formed a partnership of sorts. I run his Editor\u2019s Notebook column whenever he writes one and he publishes anything of mine that he wants and has room for.<\/p>\n It has been a rewarding partnership. David and I worked together at the Gazette for a few years before he left to start the Outpost 16 years ago. I always imagined working with him again someday, but I couldn\u2019t imagine how, until Last Best News was born.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been just as rewarding to work with photographer John Warner, who left the Gazette years ago and has now worked with me on half a dozen stories. And that\u2019s his photo on top of this quarterly report.<\/p>\n John was also responsible for the spectacular photo<\/a> of the fellow surfing in the BBWA irrigation ditch on April 1. I had hoped the date would have been more of a tip-off, but let me formally say it now: The picture was Photoshopped and the accompanying story was entirely fabricated. It was April Fool\u2019s, people! But if you were sucked in, don\u2019t feel bad. John\u2019s photo was that good.<\/p>\n Among the other contributors I will note two, Peter Tolton and Stan Parker. They are young, talented and ambitious and I hope to bring you more of their work.<\/p>\n Pete wrote the story<\/a> about chef Jason Corbridge\u2019s comeback plans, which was one of the most-read stories we\u2019d published to that date. Stan, who has also done some fine writing, produced the video that accompanied my story on the record February snowfall<\/a>. He combined new footage with clips from an amateur documentary made during the biggest snowstorm in Billings history, back in 1955. That was similarly popular and was widely shared on Facebook.<\/p>\n I also need to thank Matthew Struck, my Web host and designer and go-to guy on all matters technological. It\u2019s a little embarrassing how ignorant I was and remain about the inner workings of this computer and of the Internet, but Matthew is so knowledgeable, so fast, so dependable and so pleasant to work with that I couldn\u2019t see spending hundreds of hours of my time in order to obtain, maybe, 5 or 10 percent of his skills.<\/p>\n![\"CapreAir_Variable\"](\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/201703_capeair_variable.jpg\")
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