Front Page: July and August at Twins Daily, Part 3: Traffic

[John Bonnes]

It's important when building a community, it's important to check in and reshare what it is we're all trying to do. Twins Daily mission is to provide a place for people to share their passion for the Twins. That passion was at an all-time high in July as the trade deadline approached.July 31st we crushed the previous daily record with 34,723 visitors, which is more fans than attended the infamous 14-12 Yankees duel. It was the most trafficked day in Twins Daily’s history, and July was the most trafficked month, breaking last month’s record.

 

Then came August, which was our third highest traffic month of all time. That means the last three months rank first through third as our most trafficked months ever. Here are the numbers for July and August:

 

Overall Traffic

July

• Readers – 175,039 (up 92% from 2018
• Sessions – 508,558 (up 56% from 2018)
• Page Views – 1,436,192 (up 37% from 2018)

August

• Readers – 183,374 (up 159% from 2018
• Sessions – 484,290 (up 78% from 2018)
• Page Views – 1,232,680 (up 48% from 2018)

I just looked it up: on the first day that we launched Twins Daily, Seth, Nick, Parker and I were doing cartwheels behind the scenes when three thousand people stopped by. And it wasn't just us. It drew hostile attention from people who suddenly feared the power of blogs. It felt like Christmas, like the end of a very long hard road that we had tread as bloggers.

 

Instead, it was the beginning. On an average day in season, 15,000 people will stop by to read unique content by independent writers. It still feels like Christmas. We are forever humbled by and grateful for your attention. Thank you so much.

 

Click here to view the article

[Seth Stohs]

I don't believe there is any video evidence of the cartwheels.... 

[Blake]

 

I don't believe there is any video evidence of the cartwheels.... 

Challenge accepted....

 

[John Bonnes]

 

I don't believe there is any video evidence of the cartwheels.... 

 

That video is saved on my PC as "MyRetirementFund.mp4"

[Guest]

 

I just looked it up: on the first day that we launched Twins Daily, Seth, Nick, Parker and I were doing cartwheels behind the scenes when three thousand people stopped by. And it wasn't just us. It drew hostile attention from people who suddenly feared the power of blogs. It felt like Christmas, like the end of a very long hard road that we had tread as bloggers.

Instead, it was the beginning. On an average day in season, 15,000 people will stop by to read unique content by independent writers. It still feels like Christmas. We are forever humbled by and grateful for your attention. Thank you so much.

 

Wow, the link to that 7-year-old post sure demonstrates how things have changed, doesn't it?

 

In many ways, the "Independent Writer" has become more accepted by teams and corporate media. In other ways, the lines between corporate and independent have become blurred. For example, Twins Daily writers (and others) now regularly get that "Access" that was one of the distinguishing characteristics between the groups at that time.

 

I'm honestly not sure whether the growth of sites like TD is attributable at all to your migration toward having more traditional access. Likewise, I wonder if what's happened in the past 7 years to the print media industry demonstrates that the fear (and loathing) of bloggers turned out to be justified.

 

Too deep, perhaps. Don't blame me, this is the kind of thing that happens when weather delays give me idle time when I would rather be watching a Twins game!