50 Million Thanks
Serendipitously, CleanTechnica just hit the 50 million pageviews mark last night (on the last day of September). Granted, this is only for part of the site’s lifetime, as the site’s stats were reset in mid-2010 (the site was started in 2007), and there are other data issues that don’t allow us to know the precise number of pageviews or visitors CleanTechnica has received even since that time (such as downtime of the stat service, sometimes for days at a time; bots; and so on), but since the service says we just hit this nice round-number milestone, I figured I’d take the opportunity to thank all of you.
No doubt about it, it’s hard to succeed in the media world today. There is so much “free” content that there is much more competition for your attention. Furthermore, the advertising world has gone on a roller-coaster ride and, for many advertisers, all of that free content has brought down the “value” of advertising on a website.
But we have somehow not only stayed afloat, but grown to a much bigger size than I originally imagined when I joined the team. I don’t think I can thank all of you enough for that. Your decisions to read our content; to share it with friends, family, and coworkers on various social media networks and on email; and to engage via the comments under articles and in surveys have made our site tremendously better and more valuable. Without a doubt, you are a key piece of our success — maybe I should even say the key piece. Of course, without content, you wouldn’t be here. But without you, we wouldn’t be able to produce such content… at least not to nearly the degree we do today.
Aside from those 50 million pageviews, here’s another fun stat from the past ~5 years: 151,051 comments. The comment threads under articles have become one of the greatest things about our site, imho. The insightful and knowledgeable comments that add context, ideas, and fun to the stories we publish are simply amazing. Of course, there are a handful of regular commenters who are irreplaceable and prolifically helpful, but there are hundreds or even thousands of you who chime in here and there in order to advance and improve the conversation. You have created a community where countless people can come to learn, have a nice time, and get inspiration to bring with them into “the real world.” We can’t at all quantify how much this has helped individual humans or society as a whole, but I’m sure the effect has been large.
We have received numerous notes about how wonderful and impressive the commenting community is here. And we have been told by some crowdfunding campaigners that our articles drove more support than any other site, including large mainstream media sites and tech giants like CNET. These points, in my opinion, show that CleanTechnica has grown far beyond a typical news outlet and has become a sort of community (to repeat myself, for lack of a better word) that includes numerous avenues for the sharing of information and ideas — not simply a one-way street from the writers to the readers. It impresses me on a regular basis these days, and I’m in awe at how it has developed and what it has become.
So, a huge thanks. And please keep helping us to improve.
(And by the way, September 2015 was yet another record month for us, hitting 1,763,390 pageviews, a bit more than August’s 1,735,594 pageviews.)
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what got me started following Cleantechnica years ago was your post about the emergence of shale gas in the US, long before it became mainstream.
Ever since then you have always provided insights and observations on emerging trends. Well done! Hope to get to the 100 million mark soon!
Ha, awesome 😀 Thanks!
Zach, celebrate by buying a Model X 😉
I can’t remember what got me looking at CleanTechnica but I’m glad I did!
This is a site where you can ask questions and get back meaningful answers. i.e. you get back “This won’t work because…” and a few links rather than “This won’t work – don’t be stupid”
Thanks for showing us all that we all have the same problems – just different people involved!
Yes, a huge thanks to Bob and all the other great commenters here, including you.
Thanks for your work, really enjoy this site
Yes I am glad that I found this site.
I do like having banter with some of the other people.
It is very informative!
THANK YOU ZACH AND EVERYBODY ELSE!! :)))
congratulations!
I found your site just ~1,5 years ago, but it quickly became one of my most visited sites. I’ve learned alot here, especially from the comments section.
Keep spreading the future 🙂
That’s awesome. Thanks 😀
I really appreciate the articles – many about green tech I had no idea existed but that give me real hope.
I also appreciate the give and take in the comments. However much people may initially cling to a position, as we explore other view points there is an overall building of consensus, a smoothing out of extreme positions, and an appreciation that differing views may have something going for them.
It is important to keep upbeat about the future and this site helps greatly in that.
Thanks! Appreciate your contributions here, as you know. 😀
Yes. This is my favorite site on the net. ThinkProgress and a few other sites are becoming quite good too. I think the next step is somehow becoming an official technical authority in the field. Not sure how to get there from here though. Hope it does though.
I’ve got two thoughts about that.
First, I suspect there would have to be a much larger budget for articles in order to hire specialist authors. And, especially, to pay enough for articles that required a lot of investigation.
Second, if the site articles got ‘too deep in the weeds’ it might lose the average bright, well educated readers, who don’t want to spend time embedded deeply into the details.
What I’d like to see happen is for more people with deeper knowledge to join in the conversations. People with good communication skills that allow them to take complex issues and present them in understandable ways.
What exactly is “an official technical authority in the field”? If articles were put on here as an “Official reviewing site”, then people would feel they HAD to comment and we’d lose the spontaneous and friendly feel.
The only thing I’d like to see more of is the authors of the articles joining in with the conversations as they’re the ones who know more about the subject (or have a contact to someone who does)
Bob/Zach.
Do any people/teams who were the subjects of articles ever get told – “The article about you went on Cleantechnica and received these comments – do you want to answer/clarify anything in them?”
Ivor and Zach need to reply.
I’d just be guessing about both. As I guessed when I replied to Ivor. ;o)
Yes. Several writers watch comments but don’t engage for some reason. I’ll try to get them to do so more. And yeah, we do pass along specific requests when commenters make them.
O!M!G! Thanks, Ivor! 😀
This site has been a source of optimism and hope for me for almost 4 years now. I avidly follow all the news articles and comments and also try to contribute to the best of my knowledge. Whenever I get frustrated and angry by some climate science denying news or website or some stupid comments in this regard from one of our know nothing congressmen in DC, I come back to this site and start feeling better in no time.
That is awesome. 😀 And hugely appreciated coming from you.
Congrats! And thanks for all the hard work! I really enjoy coming here every day to check the headlines and take the time to read through some articles. Keep up the good work!
Thanks!