Moss gathers Journal readers
Relinked is a weekly look back at online highlights at edmontonjournal.com
Web Traffic Highlight of the Week: Resurrected Moss (120,000+ page views)
Plenty of hard news hitting the stands this week: the B.C. government rejected the Northern Gateway Pipeline, press conferences for city councillors discussed plans for the October election, multiple helicopter crashes, and the Rob Ford video scandal kept Internet news junkies busy.
Amid all this, the position of most-read online was claimed by a quirky news story about a University of Alberta scientist bringing 400-year-old moss back to life after it had been frozen under a glacier. Reporter Sheila Pratt’s May 27 profile of Prof. Catherine La Farge and her marvellous moss pulled more than 36,000 website page views, but 90,000 page views on edmontonjournal. com’s mobile site — more than twice as much as the next most popular story. (Over 1,400 Facebook shares also helped matters.) A rolling stone might gather no moss, but the Journal had no such reservations this week. Social Media Story of the Week: Bus Bedbug Brouhaha
March 27 was certainly the day for stories of life found in unexpected places. That same afternoon, a story about Edmonton Transit buses being fumigated for bedbugs briefly went viral out of the Journal’s Facebook page. Despite the fact that only four out of 900 buses required fumigation this year (less than half a per cent) and reassurances from ETS officials that transit riders had nothing to worry about, the article still reached the highest number of readers via Facebook this week. Video of the Week: Rob Ford Scandal (35,000 views)
For once, this section isn’t merely all about singing the praises of the Journal’s Goosecam (which logged another 2,200 hours this week, not that anyone is counting.) But in terms of numbers, video accompaniments to the various updates on beleaguered Toronto Mayor Rob Ford losing another five staff members were viewed a staggeringly large number of times, both counting individually and collectively. Online Project of the Week: Journal Driving Test
This one may be a selfish pick, since I’m actually spending the summer getting my own licence, but with the rash of vehicle accidents throughout Edmonton in recent weeks, brushing up on road rules might be a good idea for everyone. Starting Friday and continuing through the summer, the Journal will be posting weekly questions from the Alberta Transportation website for drivers to test their knowledge in an online quiz. At time of writing, I’m batting two-for-two, and I only have my learner’s permit. Think you can match me?