Editorial: State of the Voice

Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice

It's been an interesting ride so far.  We launched the revamped Pincher Creek Voice on July 23, a little over two months ago.


Some stats
Since relaunching we've published over 400 stories and have had over 24,000 page views.  Again, that's in just over two months. The page view stats astound me.  We never dreamed it would take off so fast.  On an average day the site gets about 350 page views.  We've seen that number climb over 1000 when there has been a significant story unfolding, and at present it never dips below 250 page views a day.
More of you read the Voice Monday to Friday, the numbers drop by about 30% on the weekends.
Peak times include Monday Morning and Friday afternoon.  To my surprise,  more of our readers are on the site in the evenings.  Checking stats at 3 am I've often been surprised to find there are still between 10 and 30 people on the site.

Challenges: Time
We face many of the same challenges any small "press" faces, including having enough manpower and time to cover everything we want to cover.  While I think we've done a fairly good job getting out to local events and reporting on them, we strive to improve that coverage.  I don't feel like we have any real competition when it comes to covering the broad spectrum of events and interests in Pincher Creek, with the possible exception of Facebook, and it leads me to caution us regularly to not be complacent.  The two main driving forces of this endeavor are Toni Lucas and myself.  We manage to put in a full day's work (sometimes more than that) at our day job(s), while still putting out what we think is the good product you see here in our "spare" time.  Understand this, I'm not making some kind of excuse for our shortcomings.  I think we're producing an excellent online source of local news.  I think it continues to improve.  I think what you think matters more than what I think, ultimately, so feel free to tell me.

Challenges: Money
Another challenge we face is the monetization of the Voice.  Ad revenue is of course an important key to our continuing success.  We're committed to pursuing this endeavor for at least a year, to the level you currently see at least, but hopefully exceeding it.    We have the numbers, and we know lots of people are reading the Voice.  In the coming months we will be expending a little more effort towards generating revenue.  At present we're in a bit of a catch-22.  If you're one of our "competitors", feel free to chuckle knowingly at this point.  If we expend our energy chasing revenue, we lose valuable time that is needed to gather and present the news.  Without that revenue, we don't have the funds to hire someone to either gather the news or chase further revenue.  We have some truly fine writers here at the Voice, and the sooner we can pay them a fair wage the better.  On that note, to our present advertisers, thank you!  Your early support has shown real vision, and it won't be forgotten as the Voice continues to grow.

On the plus side of the present financial picture, the Voice is a large part of a bigger endeavor, and is driving revenue to our other side businesses, which include website building and maintenance, live music and sound support, and a variety of other things.  Our "Comodisc" business is flourishing, and the Voice is certainly helping that.
Comodisc will soon be rebranded, to reflect our new reality.

Challenges: Balance
At present the political commentary we've published has been definitely left of centre.  This was not by design.  We would like to see as many different points of view expressed here as exist in our community.  I decided quite specifically that I would not be engaging in much punditry myself.  I believe a publication like ours requires a hand on the tiller that steers clear of political stances.  It's not that I don't have opinions.  I just believe I can't properly represent the opinions of the many while espousing my own biases.  I'm issuing the challenge again.   If you have a point of view you'd like to express, within reason this is a place you can do that.  I will always reserve the right to edit or reject material that has been submitted.  So far, I haven't had to reject anything submitted, and the editing I've done has been for the sake of clarity and to correct errors.  I would really like to see a "conservative" viewpoint or two being represented in our list of columnists.  Or three even.  At present, our columnists are contributing for free or for non-monetary considerations (tradesies).  I want to thank Sheri Monk,  Phil Burpee, Joe Cunningham, and George Huddlestun for their efforts.  You all make this a more vibrant website, and your contributions are greatly appreciated.

Challenges: Getting our foot in the door
While we are making ourselves known in the community, in some quarters there has been some resistance to the idea of a new (gasp) news source, and some resistance to the notion of "online" news.  In addition, some people and organizations haven't heard of us yet.  That results in some things being covered better than others.  Bit by bit we're raising awareness and changing perceptions.  If you think we ought to be covering something we're not, feel free to let us know about it.  If you let us know about it beforehand, it's of course much easier for us to be present with notepad and camera in hand.  We're also quite open to submitted content.  Another big thank you to those members of our community who have already contributed.

Changes
Over the past couple of months we've responded to several often repeated suggestions.  Some worked out, some died on the vine, and some are still in the nascent stages.
Many people asked for a Classifieds section.  I resisted the idea at first, but was eventually convinced the idea was a sound one.  The new Pincher Creek Classifieds website attached to the Voice (www.pinchercreekclassifieds.com)  is indeed growing, slowly but surely.
Some folks suggested incorporating a chatroom.  We tried it.  No one came.  It's gone now.  If enough people actually seem interested in the idea in the future we will revisit it.
We're working on making the Voice more phone friendly.
A frequent request has been for cartoons and games.  We will be revisiting a "fun zone" concept soon, but the reality of cartoons is they cost, and until our revenue stream improves I'd rather spend what funds we have on improving our content.  I also know there are plenty of ways to read comics online now, and I'm not sure how our site fits into that.
I've fiddled with the layout a bit over the last couple of months.  There's at least one big stylistic change coming up, but it's not quite ready to launch yet.  It's important to me that our navigation be as simple as possible while covering all the bases.

Thank you
Thank you for reading, thank you for telling your friends, and thank you for the valuable input we've received.

Chris Davis, Publisher, Pincher Creek Voice
pinchercreekvoice@gmail.com
October 3, 2011

ps: I promise my next editorial will be much shorter than this one.