Here we are Reading with another year in the books and over 117,000 views on Reading Recap this year alone! All of this would not be possible without you coming back on a daily basis or without the help from our incredible volunteers that donate their time and effort to make a difference in the town we all call home.
In the brief year and a half since the site’s been live, we’ve made significant strides in keeping residents informed of strictly Reading related news, events, and meetings. From live-streaming at almost every Town event this year, to bringing the Back to the Future replica DeLorean to the Fall Street Faire, to writer Marianne McLaughlin Downing extensively previewing all of the School Committee meetings, there was something for everyone on Reading Recap.
One other item of note in the chart below is the “total revenue” analytic showing zero. That’s reserved for Google Ads that we could run on the website to offset the $1,000’s it costs to maintain on a yearly basis. Nobody likes ads though, especially ones that would cover half the content you’re trying to read. Instead, we only run Reading ads, by Reading only businesses for no cost (yes, you read that correctly). If you’d like to see your ad featured, please check out the form here. To this date, we have not received nor requested any funding. It’s our way of giving back to the community.
Our Top 3 most viewed pages of 2023: The 1st is our home page for obvious reasons but coming in 2nd is our free Police and Fire Scanner with 5,794 views. Coming in 3rd, is our Live Train Depot Camera with 3,960 views but far more unaccounted for on the direct YouTube feed. As a 5th place honorable mention with 2,109 views, something I typically wouldn’t bring up but I don’t have an answer, is our 2023-2024 RPS District Calendar page. Every so often, when I’d check in on the site’s analytics, I’d wonder why there was a consistent amount of people that were going to this page as opposed to the RPS official site? Just a random observation.
In terms of Our Top 3 most viewed articles of 2023, they are listed below in order. Our 1st place article, which also happened to shatter the single day site visit record of 1,537 previously held by the Walgreens post is:
1st at 2791 total article views: 🗑️ Town Meeting Approves Town-wide Trash & Recycling Carts. Link here.
With Town Meetings 104-42 approval of Article 7 last night, the Town of Reading will be eliminating all current household trash and recycling containers in the coming year. There will also be a reduction from 128 gallons of trash and 1 large item per household to 64 gallons and no large items.
2nd at 1416 total article views: ⛔ End of the Road for Walgreens Building. Link here.
After issuing an RFP back in August 2022, the former Walgreens building at 17 Harnden St is officially off the table for a potential new community/senior center. The Select Board came out of a brief Executive Session during last night’s meeting and Chair Mark Dockser read the following statement…
3rd at 1124 total article views: 💰 Town Meeting Approves Birch Meadow Phase 1. Link here.
Depending on who you ask, Birch Meadow Phase 1 started back in 2007 or as Town Meeting Member Bill Brown pointed out last night, it was in the 1930’s instead. The end result is the same, a longtime project consisting of multiple phases, is finally moving forward via a 134-2 vote on Article 14.
In terms of videos, this ends up being completely up in the air. We could spend hours recording and editing a video, only to end up with 50 views. Then I could record a 35 second impromptu video of the Reading Field Hockey team advancing to the Final 4 and get 1,900. What we originally planned on was having all our videos exclusively hosted on YouTube to be able to grow that channel and eventually have the ads there fund the site. I knew that it would stunt the sites growth in the beginning but would work out in the end. Since live-streaming started taking off though, we reversed course and started posting to both, giving the user the choice. So, while you may see a video on our YouTube page with 46 views, it could have 600 or so on Facebook. Case in point, that Field Hockey video mentioned above, only has 124 views on our YouTube page. Yet on Facebook, it has 1910 which is a massive difference. As an aside, Reading Field Hockey went on to win the MIAA Division 2 Championship!
Coming in with 2134 Views,🏑 Reading Field Hockey Advances to the MIAA Division 2 Final 4, is our Number 1 video of the year.
Coming in with 1760 Views,🌲Reading Town Forest Aerial Drone Footage in 4K – January 2023 is our Number 2 video of the year.
Coming in with 1296 Views, 🤽🏻 Dunk the Readings – Dunk Tank Video Montage during the Fall Street Faire is our Number 3 video of the year.
So what else is in store for 2024? More Cafe Conversations videos, more live-streams, more drone footage and one other significant change that’s been in the works but has yet to be implemented. I’d also like to get back to posting more Limpy’s Adventures.
So where does this post end? The same place it did last year. Thank you Reading. Thank you for coming back daily to see what our site and more importantly, what our town has to offer.
Happy New Year Reading! Onward to 2024!
