NEWS ABOUT OUR NEWS SERVICE:
We're working on it.....
Our statistical service told us some weeks ago that the most visited special pages within our blog in recent days have been, in this order :
- The blog postings, what you're reading now
- The Boat Building Section, our most rapidly expanding "special page"
- Admiralty Law, our most complex section to expand and improve
- The News Section: Our most recent addition
In response to this information in recent days we have expanded the news coverage in the blog space while directing the readers attention to the News Section. We found that we immediately picked up 50 or more new visitors on heavy news days, and lost those readers on days when we had less news coverage in the blog postings. We also discovered that our news readers would visit our News Service once and not return daily, but the count would pick up on the blog postings when we had more news coverage. The inevitable conclusion is that our "News Service" needs improvement. We're working on it, here are a few points to keep in mind.
- Because of our unique contacts in the maritime world we often have information that the media does not have or we have it first. When that happens the "News FLASH" blog posting seems appropriate. But we really need for our news readers to form the habit of visiting the news service daily. The blog postings have to cover the entire area of interest which for this blog includes all maritime activity that generates literature, publications, periodicals, and videos.
- We are not staffed to provide a full service News Service, though we are willing to undertake that if there is sufficient interest. You the reader determine that by the frequency and volume of visits to the News Section. Visitor volume plus frequency equals advertising revenue. If the news section produces the revenue we will reinvest in the News Section. However the News section is very labor intensive as is our main mission the organization, review and presentation of all the World's English language maritime literature, publications, and videos. We have been at this task for over seven months and it is only in the last month that we have had the visitor traffic to generate the advertising that you see now. Your patience as we evolve is greatly appreciated. We are working on a shoe string but as revenues increase we will reinvest in the enterprise.
- As we have said many times at our present state of organization we are bit like a newly opened technical library. The NEWS SERVICE started as simply a sort of news room where the visitor could find and link into the World's English language maritime trade journals and news magazines. As we started building features the original "News Room", the collection of the world's English language maritime trade journals and magazines moved way down the scroll. IT IS STILL THERE AND IN FACT EXPANDED. Visitors can still go there and simply browse the Worlds maritime news media anytime.
- We will not abandon, and are in fact expanding our headline service but obviously it might not now be in the best space within the scroll. Frankly we don't know where the best position is for it right now. We have also expanded the editorial and opinion sections and they are near the bottom of the scroll. Obviously we are already finding the scroll presentation system inherent in the blog rather limiting but changing from the scroll system has to await another whole plateau of visitor levels. In the meantime your comments are deeply appreciated.Our visitors help us build the blog/website every day.
When we began seven months ago there were three feature developers/writers laboring daily to send out a product to five "side walk superintendents", other members of the American Admiralty Information Services net work who agreed to be daily readers and constructive critics. Feed back was via private e-mail. After about six weeks visitors we didn't know began to click in and even to comment. About 4,500 non AAIS visitors later we began to take on the present format. We are now at a critical juncture. We have a lot of developmental work to do, and we must build our visitor numbers, and improve format and increase content including the never ending and tedious task of book review. We already know that the present scrolling format is inadequate but we are going to be stuck with it for some time and must improve constantly with one eye on the adaptability of our improvements to a future improved presentation format. Over the next year we ask for your patience, your suggestions / comments, and for our news orientated visitors your daily check of our NEWS SERVICE page, come in and scroll down and let us know what you think. Help us build a real News Service. Meanwhile we pledge to work towards constant improvement and to continue to alert you on the station ID, the first window to pop up when you click in of those news items where we have special insight. We never intend to become a news service in lieu of being book reviewers, information organizers. We still have as our mission to be the best single source of information and preferred research starting point for anything maritime. Thank you for your visit, please come back often and let us know what you think. And...please like us on FaceBook, it helps
No comments:
Post a Comment