2011 And The Ashland Current

It's hard to believe, but 2011 is over and gone and we at the Ashland Current are gearing up for a great 2012. We have some fun initiatives planned that I hope will be of service to our readers.

At the end of 2010 I provided an update about this news and information site, and I'd like to build on that report and let our readers know how we are doing today.

The Ashland Current launched in June 2010 as a creative entrepreneurial effort of Andrew Broman, Tristan Fitzgerald, and myself. That first month the Ashland Current had 264 visits, 100 unique visitors, and 2,625 page views tracked through Google Analytics. We thought that was admirable enough, and we continued along with very modest expectations for how the Ashland Current would do in the year to come.

Little did we know that in six short months the Ashland Current would record 40,000 visits, 15,000 unique visitors and 144,000 page views, which breached our expectations for readership and demonstrated to us that there was a higher demand for our services than we had previously thought. With these statistics in mind we conservatively estimated 250,000 page views for a 12-month period.

Our readership proved us wrong. And, I have to say, it is again a pleasant surprise.

For the month of December 2011 alone we had upwards of 50,000 visits, nearly 23,000 unique visitors and 117,000 page views.

This means that since our quiet inception in June 2010, the Ashland Current has grown to have more than 440,000 visits, 206,000 unique visitors and 1.15 million page views – yes, you read that correctly, it's now more than a million.

These numbers, and again this is a conservative estimate, lead me to believe that we can depend on 1 million page views every year here at the Ashland Current, if our readership remains static and does not continue to grow.

Our readers come from all over the world and hail from all 50 states, with the majority of our readers coming from Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan, with statewide interest throughout Wisconsin. Most of our Wisconsin readers are in the Chequamegon Bay region, followed by the state metro areas.

Those who frequent our site are dedicated, interested, and engaged citizens who care about their communities and enjoy interacting with one another and with the material we publish.

Many thanks from us here at the Ashland Current to these readers, and really to everyone who makes this site possible. In no way did we make the Ashland Current solely on our own. We thank the contributors, our intern Adam Engel, the many businesses and organizations that believe enough in what we do to advertise, all those who have given us advice, and the various media outlets that have supported us thus far through our entrepreneurial effort.

We strive to provide community-driven and dependable news – and we appreciate the critical eye our readers focus on that news, for without such attention to detail, democracy would ultimately suffer. We hope to do better for you in the year to come. Thank you for reading and for making the Ashland Current, Ashland's only locally-owned news source, what it is today. We wish all of our readers a very Happy New Year!

PS - If you ever have a story idea, comment, or complaint about the Ashland Current, please drop us a line at info@ashlandcurrent.com.