Newsnet Scotland would like to take this opportunity to welcome all new visitors to the site.
The site was launched on March 12th this year; the aim was to provide a small news and current affairs outlet that would offer an alternative to that provided by the Scottish main stream media.
Our original target was 2500 page views per day. Page views is a statistic used by advertisers to determine the popularity of a web site, it is altogether different from site hits that are usually higher but meaningless.
Newsnet Scotland would like to take this opportunity to welcome all new visitors to the site.
The site was launched on March 12th this year; the aim was to provide a small news and current affairs outlet that would offer an alternative to that provided by the Scottish main stream media.
Our original target was 2500 page views per day. Page views is a statistic used by advertisers to determine the popularity of a web site, it is altogether different from site hits that are usually higher but meaningless.
Below is a snapshot of the site stats as they stand at 19:00 on July 29th 2010:
- Over 1.3 million page views
- Over 48,000 unique visitors
- Almost 8 million site hits
- Average daily page view for July is almost 13,000
- Over 550 registered members
Newsnet Scotland is run by unpaid volunteers who are not formally trained journalists and who have no political affiliations, the site does though reflect the team’s desire for major constitutional change – full fiscal autonomy is the minimum we seek.
Site content is supplemented by respected journalist Mr Kenneth Roy of the Scottish Review and equally respected political commentator Mr Gerry Hassan, they are not part of the official team but kindly allow us to reproduce their work.
The site relies on many hours of unpaid work and small donations from readers, we would like to thank everyone who has donated thus far and those who have offered support and well wishes.
Many suggestions and questions have been raised on the comment threads, we will try to address some of them here.
Other media:
Newsnet Scotland has no connection to, or any contact with, other news outlets. We do not offer our articles to anyone directly, however any non profit organisation who requests our work is always given permission to reproduce, a nod to Newsnet Scotland in the byline is all we ask – Mr Roy and Mr Hassan of course retain control over their own work.
Growth:
We have grown larger than we anticipated and are looking for people who can contribute more content to the site. We would like to provide some content that is non political and would welcome content that was perhaps sport based. In today’s Scotland football reigns so it would make sense to offer content that was attractive to the football fan.
Paper copy:
There have been suggestions that a paper edition of the site would help raise awareness. The small team behind Newsnet Scotland has no background in professional journalism or publishing, we are essentially software based people who are now self taught journalists.
The site did have a PDF icon that created a pdf of an article, however it has been disabled as the layout it created was not perfect.
If anyone has the inclination and/or the resources to re-create articles in printed form then we would, in principle, have no objections to them being reproduced and the Newsnet Scotland logo accompanying them.
Messages:
We receive many emails pointing to articles or suggesting article topics. Whilst these are always welcome we would encourage people to actually start writing their own articles. It is always tempting to post comments on a thread and many people do just that, however one well researched well written article is worth 100 comments – remember that the authors identity can remain hidden.
Future:
We do not know what the future will bring, the site is probably as big as it can be given the resources we currently have. Advertising the site is not an option until we can be sure that we have a product that people will return to.
So, if you fancy yourself as a bit of a writer or you know of anyone who might be willing to contribute then just point them in our direction. The pay is dreadful but it can be both rewarding and, if you are a student journalist, good practice.
In the meantime, thanks for visiting the site and taking the time to read our articles.
The Newsnet Scotland Team.