To: Luke
From: Owen
Re: The Weekends are Made For
The dirty secret here is we're all mindful of our traffic. Why not? The running total is right there beside every story, and I refer to it when I write this note to tell you what the big stories were the past two days.
Assigning a number to a big story is not fundamentally a bad thing. In 18 months here, I've found that figure gives me a closer understanding of my readership's preferences, interests and demands than I ever had as a newspaper reporter, when the circulation was a rule-of-thumb guess that rarely moved, and was most likely inflated.
And yet some days, I'm not sure the pageview count creates the kind of relationship that's good for either side.
This weekend's report included a major reveal about a game releasing Tuesday; a peek inside a dead studio working on a sequel to one of the most famous franchises ever, and a neat story about a teenager raising $3,000 to fly a major studio chief to Australia to look at his mod - not to mention a sports column that took a couple hours to report and write.
And the single-biggest traffic winner? Implied tits on a headline roundup. Sure, the image choice was mine, and was deliberate. But I don't know whether the hits make me smug or disappointed.
The news value of weekend posts is always a hot topic on my shift; I'll remember this the next time the subject comes up in discussion. It often does.
Some news you might have missed:
A Final Look Inside GRIN's "Fortress"
Is Left 4 Dead's Crash Course Coming Sept. 23?
'Fly Gabe Newell' Raises $3,000
Nintendo Files the Trademark to End all Trademarks
Got Red Baron Source Code? It's Worth $1,500
All 22,802 Words in Scribblenauts
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