Most read/least read
It's Christmas Eve, and if the traffic in Croydon this morning is anything to go by we're pretty much the only people in work.
I'm no fan of the festive season, thanks to the combination of early deadlines and the lack of anything happening.
It does, though, give me the opportunity to study some of newspaper sales and web traffic statistics over the past 12 months.
I went through the most popular online stories of the year a couple of months ago, and not a great deal has changed.
The tale about a UFO allegedly spotted above Purley Tesco got tens of thousands of hits and still continues to draw people in many weeks on. The rest of the top ten is a faintly depressing list of stabbings and fatal accidents.
I've also had a look at the least popular stories of the year, and can reveal that Big Brother reject Ziggy takes the wooden spoon - just one person was interested in reading how he's moving on with his life after the reality show.
My own personal favourite story of the year was probably Maria Gatland's IRA background, thanks simply to its unexpected nature - it was also astonishing how quickly it went from being a rumour to a resignation issue.
Funnily enough, it wasn't the type of story that would be a particularly high seller - it was of great interest to us and to her colleagues, but possibly not to the man or woman on the street.
14 Comments
View all
by The Chopper, Croydon
Friday, February 06 2009, 4:31PM
“Sorry? Did someone speak to you, Giles?”
by ANNE GILES, SELSDON
Friday, February 06 2009, 2:57PM
“No - he's still around and still replying to my e-mails.”
by The Chopper, Croydon
Friday, February 06 2009, 7:47AM
“Hey, Carter - where have you gone from the blogosphere? Have you been lost in a snowdrift on the ungritted, uncleared pavements of central Croydon? Or have you just been made redundant?”
by Samisdat, Croydon
Wednesday, January 07 2009, 3:38PM
“Fifth time of posting!
...Why are you all so afraid of the simple truisms I'm voicing below?
Whilst I appreciate the advantages to the newspaper concerned of requiring posters to register, it's an open invitation to those who wallow in our present-day control-freak culture i.e. "You're all free to say what you like, so long as you agree with me!" And yes, as you observe, Scott, it does indeed lead to a reduction in comments, and also to those who want to comment, but have the "wrong" (read "challenging/non-pc") opinions.
As a result too often these days in papers like the Croydon Guardian one sees the same little clutch of names (one appears here) expressing predictably humdrum feel-good platitudes.
...But hey, it's safe!”
by maddie, ex ASBO
Tuesday, January 06 2009, 5:41PM
“Oh get lost Anne Giles i thought we had heard the last of you , go poke that nose of yours somewhere else.”
by Scott, Croydon
Monday, January 05 2009, 10:33AM
“having thought about it some more, i think it was be easy to enable a script to do it, but how do you stop people multiple voting down or up their own comments? on youtube you have to "sign in" to rate comments, and one of the things i like most about this site is you dont have to sign up to comment.
the reason i stopped using sutton guardian website is because they enforced the registration process on to their users who want to comment and you can see quite clearly that their number of comments on stories has reduced dramatically.
If it could be done and implemented without a user sign up requirement then i think it would very useful to the site and its users.”
by ANNE GILES, SELSDON
Thursday, January 01 2009, 5:56PM
“Happy New Year!”
by nobby no mates, SELSDON
Thursday, January 01 2009, 10:15AM
“As long as it keeps that dreadful GILES woman off im all for it
Bring it on............................”
by Samisdat, Croydon
Thursday, January 01 2009, 8:32AM
“What you're suggesting sounds dangerously democratic to me, Scott. Careful, or you might be banished from the pages of the Croydon Advertiser!
(By the way, yes, I think it's a good idea.)”
by Scott, Croydon
Wednesday, December 31 2008, 11:20AM
“It would be nice if comments could be rated, like they are on youtube, as some people don't want to take the time to post out a long reply but may still agree or disagree with a persons post?
Could you submit that suggestion to the webmaster please?”