First and foremost, thanks to everyone who’s been reading the blog over the past 365 days, and for commenting and sending e-mails. Hard to believe it’s been a year, but in the time since I started the blog, Hotel Indigo and SkyView at Carriage City Plaza have both opened and Hamilton Laundry finally was demolished. The economy has tanked altogether as well, forcing changes to two projects in town.
I started the blog because I’m interested in what goes on in my neighborhood and in my town, and I figure most people are as well. Unfortunately, while there are plenty of cable news channels screaming about the presidential election (granted, it’s important too), there’s precious few media covering what’s happening at a local Zoning Board or Planning Board meeting. What can I say, I’m a community journalist at heart, from my days as, well, a community journalist for a weekly newspaper.
You’ll notice there’s no advertising on the site. I’ve thought about messing around with Google AdWords but I thought it probably wouldn’t be worth the four cents a week I’d rake in. The blog isn’t what pays my bills either, so it’s really more a hobby/community service.
For those who are curious, here are some random readership statistics about the blog. I started tracking blog traffic in earnest with Google Analytics in mid-January, so these figures are for the last 8 1/2 months or so, and not a full year:
30,408 Visits
57,605 Page views
1.89 Pages per visit
2:23 Average time on site
8,384 Visitors
We have 151 subscribers by email, compared to 68 after six months (and 156 just yesterday…?). It’s been around 150 for a few weeks now. The highest number of visits in a day (226) was July 7; perhaps after a post about the number of units closing at SkyView. Not surprising considering SkyView is among the most popular key word searches that end up on the blog. We also get a number of visitors searching for Luciano’s and Cubanu, with a few looking for The Savoy. The most widely read posts also are still the ones about Luciano’s and Cubanu.
Goals for the second year? I’d like to hopefully spice up the blog graphically, but sometimes it’s tough to find the time after writing a few posts a week. I’m also hopeful of “marketing” the blog a bit more and getting the word out. It’s just been word of mouth and Internet searches so far that have pointed people toward the site. I’m also hoping to get a regular poll back up and running more frequently; that kind of petered out a few months ago. I also might be open to finding a new name for the blog if anyone has suggestions. I’ve explained the title before but I get the impression people think the blog is a totally pro-redevelopment, positive-only place to visit. I’ll write about anything going on, but good or bad is for readers to decide.
As always, I’m open to suggestions for improving the blog. Feel free to tell me what you like or don’t like either via the comments section below or by email. There’s been talk amongst the inner circle for some time about hosting a Rahway Rising happy hour or some kind of get-together. Maybe I’ll just have everyone over for some Karaoke Revolution.
Thanks again for reading.
Moved to Rahway this year and wanted to thank you for the great work. Nice to know that there are still people who care about thier town. On a side note- do you or anyone else know if the Rahway First Aid squad ia a volunteer organization.
Great work Mark, I moved here 5 years ago and the only other place you could get local “news” and goings on was the Rahway progress.This is much more informative in a neutral way!
Mark Thank you for keeping us all up to date for the past year. I would not know a fraction I do about the town without you. Congratulations on the anniversary. See you and everyone else at the Taste Nov 14th.Anonymous yes the First aid squad is volunteer
I hope that fact that you attend local meetings and events to inform your writing, all on your own time while working hard to leave it free of personal judgment, speaks volumes to those who read it. Mark’s interest and commitment to community journalism is genuine! Keep up the great work!In the interest of full disclosure, Mark and I are siblings 🙂 But I challenge you to find more people who rush home from their day job to make it to community meetings… and then go home with notes to write about it!
Congrats Mark and good job on the site. I love checking up on the local news. Without this site I wouldn’t know about most of it.As for the blog name, I like it as is.
Mark, you have been doing a great job. You keep it very interesting and I appreciate your effort on keeping up with it.Congratulations!
keep the info coming i enjoy looking out every week for your blog. And it’s always relevent info.
Congrats on the anniversary, bro! (yes, another sibling). Though I’m no longer in Rahway, I love keeping up with what’s going on in my former ‘hood. Keep up the good work!
The news from your blog is much appreciated here at Studio 7/4. Thank you.
Congratulations on a great first year with your blog! Thanks for sharing your interest in Rahway with all of us, and for all your work on the blog.
Happy Birthday to you,Happy Birthday to you,HAPPY BIRTHDAY dear Rahway Rising,Happy Birthday toooooooo youuuuuu! HAIL HAIL THE GANGS…….ECT. CHEERS! 😉 Great job man! keep it up.:)
By the way, that is a dashing new photo posted in your profile! Looks like it was ripped from a FoxNews profile, or maybe the back of Stephen Colbert’s book.
Congratulations on your first full year! I’ve enjoyed reading about the happenings and the comments as well. First time I’ve felt like there was actually a “community” here. Good work.
Mark, Great job with the blog. It has been great to read. I check it every morning. One thing I would suggest is to set up a messageboard where commenter’s can start their own threads (topics). This way, the comments on your entries stay in line with the article while leaving a place for other topics to develop. This will also create an added community feel for people to express themselves and hear what others have to say. It could be a simpler version of http://www.jetsinsider.com. Click on Fan Interaction at the top and scroll to JI Messageboards.
Great work — I admire the commitment. I’ll always be a fan of Rahway.
Good job with the blog! I wanted to chime in earlier this week but offline life has kept me busy. You are clearly passionate about your topic and passion keeps blogs going. If you plan to expand or want to branch off from redevelopment (especially if the credit crunch holds) I can see this becoming an equivalent of Baristanet for your area. The NJ Real Estate Report blog meetups have been great – try a RR happy hour sometime (and spare us from Karaoke!).
Monkeypilot, Thanks. We were just goofing around with a camera in the train station plaza one day last summer, and the flag just happened to make it into a brilliantly random position in that shot. Didn’t even notice it until I got home that it was Colbert-esque. I’d been meaning to post that as the profile pick for awhile and figured the week of Election Day would be appropriate, or it’ll just be the money shot for any future campaign materials 😉