Dear Reader: Indy By The Numbers

Dear Reader,

I wanted to take a moment to share a bit of Indy insider news with you.

Reader Comments
A couple of weeks ago we received our 1000th comment. While the comment section has been a little slow to get off the ground for our tastes, in two of the last three weeks we have had over 20 comments. That’s short of our weekly record of 37 in one week but still indicative of the lively discussions that we hope to foster.

Number of Readers
Our readership dropped precipitously between Thanksgiving and New Years, and was down about 25^% from our all time high of over 20,000 page views in a month. We are in the process of working our way back, Our 30 day numbers continue to edge up (16,857 page views for the last 30 days). The numbers are pretty labile from week to week (e.g. this week we’re down 480 page views and 54 unique sessions from the previous week) but the trend is upwards. Perhaps that small drop this week was due to the drama of last week’s emotion-packed inauguration? You can track weekly and monthly numbers in our table of contents. It does look like our readership is trending back upward and if you have been away, we are glad to have you back.

Subscription Problems?
We now have about 1000 people who receive our weekly email digest of Indy headlines. If you would like to be on our mailing list, just drop me a note at amherstindy@gmail.com. You can also sign up using the subscribe link on on the top tool bar of our front page. If you have had difficulty with this link, no worries. Just drop me a note and I’ll sign you up. And if you were subscribed and you mysteriously stopped receiving the Indy, it is likely going to your spam folder. Please let me know if you are not receiving your weekly dispatches and I’ll help you figure it out.

So Many Contributors
Since the Indy’s inception about two years ago we have had 126 unique contributors to the Indy (excluding comments). Some of those have contributed a single letter while others appear on our pages at regular intervals and some appear weekly. We take that as a healthy indicator of community participation. We are an all-volunteer operation and our existence and our success requires the collective efforts of the community. We don’t advertise and you won’t get an appeal for an annual fund drive from us. But if you want to support what we do, you can consider joining those 126 folks who already write for us. So please, make a comment, or drop us a letter, or write an opinion piece or help us cover the news. At the moment, there is far more news in town than we have regular reporters to cover it. So please consider stepping up and taking on one of our open reporting assignments (e.g. Agriculture Commission, Finance Committee, Energy and Climate Action Committee, Conservation Commission). . Drop me a note at amherstindy@gmail,com and I’ll fill you in on what we need and how you can help.

Looking For Photos
Those of you who were with us at the beginning may recall that we had a vision of creating a photo library where members of the community could share their photos of the Amherst area. Well, we haven’t worked out the technical aspects of that yet, and may never do so. But most of our photos can be used by our readers for non-commercial purposes (look for the designation ” creative commons license”) and we encourage you to use them.

Last week Toni Cunningham sent me a very nice picture of the new Soofa sign in front of the Jones Library and I thought about all of the pictures that we need of people and places in town for our Indy thumbnails and of all the times that we have had to use repeat photos. So I am asking folks who like to take photographs – please send us photos from around Amherst: photos of your favorite spots but also of commonplace scenes from around town: fire trucks, store fronts, kids at play, coffee drinkers, landmarks, streets and sidewalks, traffic lights, or whatever catches your eye. We’ll add them to our internal library, use them when the time is right to post them with an article, and we’ll credit you for your work. Of course we’re still looking for special photos for our Photo Of The Week. But we could use some help with the everyday stuff as well. Thanks in advance.

Thanks for reading The Indy and best wishes,

Art Keene
Managing Editor