We had a record 5,497 unique visitors to our news website the day after Christmas, most likely the result of our Christmas Day story filed later that day headlined: NSB small business owner Dean Carr endures with brain tumor; daughters: 'Our father being alive is our Christmas'
Our previous one-day record was an even 5,000 the day before the Nov. 2 general elections when we posted our endorsements for all of the races. We would have had a lot more, but we kept crashing. As a result we expanded our bandwidth.
Our site has grown tremendously since we launched iit as NSBNEWS.net in April 2008, with the help of my business partner and best friend, Peter Mallory. In October, we started building VolusiaNews.net and last month combined the two websites into one to avoid doing double the work with such a small staff: Mainly my wife, Sera, and I.
People are discovering our website and recognizing its value as a true journalism-driven source in a multi-media digital format that can be accessed not only on desktops and laptops, but on smart phones and i-Pads as well, any time day or night.
Anybody can put together a website, but there are few who can actually report the news with strength. My 8 1./2 years at the Daytona Beach News-Journal as a metro reporter covering cops and courts is being put to good use here. I'm living proof that there is journalism life beyond the News-Journal and its liberal bent.
Certainly, we are not going to topple the Goliath, but our sling shot is pretty potent and we're ready to stake out our claim to the news. Just go to Google News for yourself and type in your zip code or city in Volusia County. Three newspapers show up throughout the dauily news cycle: The Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal and NSBNEWS.net (our ancvhored URL that Google registers). You'll also see the Orlando TV news stations as well.
The point is, we are part of the mainstream media, even though we are basically a one-person operation. Sera does a lot of uploading and posting of items that I have edited. I write most of the stories and take most of the photos. Sera does the graphics elements and videos.
We also have a growing staple of community bloggers and a contributing writer.
Besides our ever-increasing number of unique visitors in a 24-hour cycle, monitored by Google Analytics, our combined website has the largest social network in Volusia County with 1,609 "likes" on our Facebook fan pages: 1,082 for NSBNEWS.net and 527 on VolusiaNews.net.
Besides writing, editing and putting together all of the components for the website, I also do most of the advertising and marketing. It's a huge task and responsibility.
I am hoping that Volusia County's small business owners and corporate entities support us with advertising so that we can continue to grow and I can take care of my family. Our ads are by far, the least expensive, with yearly placements ranging from $200 to $2,500.
Every day, I meet new people and build new contacts. A lot of politicians and those in government service know of my award-winning reporting and writing skills, all the result of hard work and commitment.
I write with authority and confidence with extensive training from the Poynter Institute and other journalism-related seminars. I have embraced the digital age and here I can really emphasize "power reporting."
There's one thing about media coverage in Volusia County that is very important: We don't have to beat the print media. But they have to beat us.
I am one reporter. One David. And I am excited about 2011.
With VolusiaNews.net / NSBNEWS.net, the public benefits as a result of competition. It means alternative sources for news and cheaper avenues for advertising. It also means new writing opportunities for community bloggers and a news-hungry public that can enjoy our diverse news video and headline feeds from around the world updated every five minutes, whether it's the Associated Press, Fox News, The New York Times or Bloomberg.
There are 365 days in the coming year and Sera and I look forward to every one of them working for you.
Remember, this website is always "free" and continuously updated around the clock. You don't have to click to another page for breaking news. It's righ5t here at the top of the Home page.
You don't have to be upset about a soggy newspaper or drive to the store to get day- and days-old rewritten press releases.
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