Archive: Opinions

EditorialAs you have likely noticed I have continued to be obsessed with improving the front and back ends of the Lansing Star.  I am hoping the result will make it easier for readers to find what they are looking for, and to highlight the many events that are going on around town.  Last week I added the tabbed feature area on the front page, and this week I replaced it with a faster loading one.  We also installed an improved Search engine, and re-archived more than 2,700 articles so that finding past stories will be simpler and easier.  And I'm sure you noticed the article clicks counter just below the masthead.  We recently went past a half million.  When we pass a million I am thinking of changing it to say "1,###,### Served,' but I am not sure I want to compare the Star to a Big Mac!

But what has really gotten my attention is the statistics we have been harvesting from the site.  The New York Times, Ithaca Journal, and indeed most newspapers don't really know what their readers are reading.  They can guess, and they can conduct surveys that may or may not provide an accurate snapshot.  But with the various Web site statistics packages we use at the Star (about a half dozen different ones) we have been getting a pretty clear picture of what people are actually reading.  Here's what made our top 100:

Last week can you guess what the most popular story was?  It was our profile of the new hair salon at Lansing Plaza, Lisa's Dream.  Our feature on the Small Fry football teams playing at Cornell drew the second most readers, followed by our election interview with Justice John Howell.  The previous week the most read article was our interview with Highway Superintendent Jack French.  The week before that our interview with Town Supervisor Steve Farkas drew the most readers, followed by a feature on The Lansing Family Triathlon.  And in the week before that stories about Lansing Harbor Festival and how the fire department dealt with a freak storm were tops.

Of the pages that are always live, 'About Lansing is the number one page of all time, with more than 5500 hits.  The Lansing Authors page, which lists books by Lansing residents, is next, with almost 4500 hits.  The number one article that was from a (one week) issue is Katrina Binkewicz's restaurant review of the Blue Stone Bar & Grill.

The next most popular story was our business profile of McGraw House, the downtown Ithaca retirement community.  And our article on how the sale of Kingdom Farm could reshape Lansing is next, with more than 3300 hits. 

And one of my favorite stories, about the dedication of the Congregation Tikun V'or synagogue, made number 76 last time I checked.  Two features on All Saints Catholic Church are on the list, and I am willing to bet that this week's feature on the dedication of the new church will inch its way onto the list as well.

On the shopping side, one of our articles on the Route 90 50 mile Yard Sale is the next most popular.  In fact, it seems that we are one of the few online publications that covers the sale, so we get email all year 'round from people asking when it is going to be (it is always the last week in July).  It's an irony that I don't really like going to yard sales, because I am the one who fields the calls and email!  But our recent profile of The Shops at Ithaca Mall (and several about the new Regal Cinema) are also in the top 100.  That suits me fine -- I'm more of a mall guy.

Several restaurant reviews made it into the top 100, we assume because of Google searches, or perhaps because we have permanent links to them in the Restaurant Guide on our Entertainment Page.  And interviews with local candidates Tim Little (Sheriff - lost), Brian Robison (Sheriff - lost), Michael Arcuri (US Congressman - won), James Rohan (NY Assembly - lost), Bud Shattuck (Town Councilman - won), and Matt Besemer (Town Councilman - won) all made it into the top 100.

Hot stories like the now failed sewer initiative, or the abortive attempt to move the 5th grade to Lansing Elementary School made it to the top 100.  A feature on sailing camp is on the list, as well as our story about the girls who escaped from the youth detention facility last year.  I was surprised that our stories on sex offenders in Lansing didn't make the top 100, only because they were so widely read when we published them (it is 189 at the moment, still pretty good since we're talking about almost 2,800 articles so far.).

The interesting thing to me is that so many stories live past the issue they appeared in.  You are probably wondering about the bottom of the list.  Stories that you don't have to click on end up there -- it's not that people don't read them, it's just that they don't have to click on them, so we don't know how many people read those.  Stories from recent weeks also end up at the bottom, because this is an all-time-clicks list.  Older stories have more time to be clicked on in the archive and search, so it's not really fair to say what's on the bottom.

But I'll tell you right now that despite the nation-wide popularity of Sudoku, Lansing readers aren't that interested.  In a typical week that page only gets two hits.  I even know who they are.  One is me, when I archive the current issue each Friday morning (I don't have a head for Sudoku -- it makes my eyes want to pop out).  The other is my wife, who won't let me kill the feature even though I have shown her this statistic many times.  So it may be fair to say that Lansing only has one Sudoku addict!

That's what you have been reading in a nutshell.  We use this data to shape the Star to reflect what you really want to know.  And it's fun to see what everyone is interested in.

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