Well – it’s official – holidays that fall at the very beginning of the month are real bummers for online newspaper distribution. Labor Day weekend took the wind out of our sails and we never recovered. Our total downloads for September were 37,344. That’s better than the damage the July 4th weekend did making our total for July 33,726. But I bet the totals for the October issue of Carolina Arts will be much better. It was our largest issue ever with 76 pages.

Look, since this is our first year at this online stuff I’m not totally expecting one thing or another as far as totals go, but once you’ve had an issue like May that brought in 61,199 downloads, you wonder why they all can’t be that way. Life has its roadblocks – like holidays, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We have to work around what life throws at us.

Our first place winner in September was the (other) category with 61,048 and I think this is the last time I’m going to include it as it seems to be just a bunch of – maybe, perhaps and or it could be – stuff. I’ve explained so many times that our server says that they could be downloads but we just don’t know what they represent that I’m ready to just say – yada, yada, ya.

Number two was the downloads of the entire paper at 37,344.

We have a new third place contender with the June issue bringing in 2,599 downloads with July right on its heels with 2,495 downloads.

The former cult issue of March only brought in 2,275 downloads, but it was still twice as many as our January issue which had only 1,362. But March is still the all time leader when you add up all it downloads from month to month – nearing 100,000 downloads.

In sixth place was February with 743 downloads and seventh place was taken by the August issue with 587 downloads.

Coming in at a distant eighth place spot was May our all time monthly leader with 355 downloads. And, for the first time is many months we have 67 downloads for our long lost April issue. All previous issues showed up in the top 200. It’s good to see April back in the mix. I bet if people took a second look at April they’d wonder why it’s being so ignored.

We had 71,760 individual sessions on our website with 513,049 hits – slightly down from August. I guess people have more to do now that Summer is over.

That’s the numbers. We’ll have a report on how the October issue did in its first ten days – in about a week or so.

If you didn’t receive notice of the Oct. 2011 issue be available the link to download the paper is (http://www.carolinaarts.com/1011/1011carolinaarts.pdf).

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Well, it goes without saying that Carolina Arts had a good month in March – as far as viewers go. We had 45,298 downloads of the PDF of the entire paper. Thank you to all who helped spread the paper around.

Of course the big unknown is the (other) category on our statistics final report for March. If you haven’t read this before, we have a category of visitors to our website at (www.carolinaarts.com) that is identified as (other). It was explained to us by our server that this group represents a variety of pages that were called up from different points – not directly from our web page, but can not be broken down as individual page counts. “What?” My same thought. Anyway, it amounted to 94,274 in March. What it comes down to is this – there could be another 45,000 visitors to the March issue in that group – or not. It could be 90,000 or not. It could be 2, but we don’t know for sure and neither does our server and getting info out of Google seems to be a life long wish. Google now owns the stat counter we use.

That’s why we are sticking with the 45,298 number. Which is great. Having just launched the April 2011 issue of Carolina Arts (www.carolinaarts.com) it makes me wonder – will we double the downloads again this month? Is that possible?

Of course it should also be noted that many people access the paper from their browsers and never download the PDF. So we think we can be safe in saying the many more than the download number are seeing the paper.

It’s like in the old days when we printed the paper back in 2010 – three months ago -someone would pick up a copy of the paper somewhere and take it home and look it over and put it down on a table. Someone else in the house might see it and pick it up and read a few articles. Eventually someone may take it over to a neighbor to show them something and they ask if they can bring it back later after showing their spouse something in the paper. We have four viewers but even if someone where the original person picked it up saw them do it – they only saw one person connected to picking up the paper. Of course in the same reasoning, that person could have picked it up because it was raining and held it over their head until they reached the next place and dumped it in the trash – never looking inside and to top it off – no one saw them pick it up. It works both ways. Circulation, viewership – whatever you call it is a guessing game. No one can be sure of anything.

The only number that counts to advertisers is the one where someone says they saw their ad or comes in because they read an article about their show. Or better yet, buys something – a work they saw in Carolina Arts.

Other numbers that have some meaning include: the Feb. 2011 issue was downloaded 2,312 times and the Jan. issue was downloaded 1,106 times – which is down from last month. But it is still nice to know that over a thousand people visited the Jan. issue to take a look. But, again the funny thing there is on March 31st – 83 people downloaded the Jan. issue while only 12 downloaded the Mar. issue. That’s twice that at the very end of the month – there was an increased interest in the Jan. issue over the current issue.

Our visitor sessions were up from an average of 60,000 to 68,513 – which is good, but really tells us that the PDF link is being spread around by others. But, these others are the good others – our friends – unlike those (other)s who hide information from us.

Hits on the website for the month of March were 723,940. I can remember a few years back when I was excited about reaching a million in one year. With April’s issue being 71 pages that number should jump drastically.

That’s the facts, Jack!

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It’s up in cyber space now. All 61 pages. That’s ten more pages than our Feb. 2011 issue – which 19,624 people downloaded – that’s more than double the amount of people who downloaded our Jan. 2011 issue. So, go take a look.

The link to the download is (remember it will take a few minutes to download once you click the link) (www.carolinaarts.com/311/311carolinaarts.pdf).

We’ve added an active index on Page 2 to help you move around the paper – for those who don’t like starting at the top and following through to the last page – which would take some time.

And, as always – we ask you to help spread the paper around, by e-mail and social media and contact our supporters (advertisers) to let them know you appreciate their support for Carolina Arts.

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I don’t know what it is but Facebook and I don’t get along. Maybe it’s because I ignored it for so long, but when we converted to an online paper, people told us – we need to get on Facebook.

Unfortunately after setting up the page, I did something (don’t let me near your computer) that has set us a back a few light years. I can’t even explain what I did, but there also doesn’t seem to be anyone at Facebook who will answer our pleas for help, so we go forward – limping into the future.

Our Internet guru Zelda helped straighten us out some, but I’m still the weak link in our organization. With a monthly newspaper that has doubled in size and two active blogs, I find myself left with little to add on Facebook, but I’m sure I’ll find my voice – someday. I didn’t understand blogs at first either.

So far, 102 people have liked us, and I’ve liked a few back, but I’ve been warned to stay away from the Facebook page until I understand what I’m doing. So, here I am – in a medium I understand – asking any and all out there who are reading this – to go to our page and like us.

I know we should have more people out there who really do like Carolina Arts, but some don’t do Facebook, or like me don’t know how to do it. Oh, they have a Facebook page that someone set up for them because they were also told they needed to be on Facebook, but like me – they have now been warned – don’t touch.

So, you folks who do Facebook and still read blogs – go to our Facebook page at (http://www.facebook.com/carolinaartsnewspaper) and like us. Ask your Facebook friends to like us. I want more likes. I need more likes. I have like envy. People won’t believe so many people are reading Carolina Arts, (over 17,000 so far this month) yet it has so few likes. What those two numbers have in common I don’t know, but we could use a few more likes.

Now, could someone explain to me what a like is?

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We have just uploaded the Feb. 2011 issue of Carolina Arts (www.carolinaarts.com). Downloading the entire PDF file is the best way to view the paper – then you can enlarge the pages to any size you like. That’s what 9,000 people did last month.

This month the paper is 51 pages or 50 and 1/8. Our gallery listings were a little longer this month. There’s lot of stuff there about exhibits taking place in the Carolinas and some other things – a little commentary by me. Judith McGrath is back with us – all the way for down under. Her words are as popular as ever – her past articles received a lot of interest last month.

If you like what you see and decide you want to participate in our next issue – either with content or to advertise an exhibit, visual art event or your art – our deadline for the Mar. 2011 issue will be Feb. 24. Here’s a link to our advertising info (http://www.carolinaarts.com/advertising.html).

And, as always we ask that you to help us spread the news that we are still publishing Carolina Arts in any way you can – by e-mail, social media, or some good old gossip.
Don’t forget to support and thank our sponsors!

Tom Starland
Editor/Publisher
Carolina Arts

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From the minute we first talked with some of our longtime advertisers about taking Carolina Arts totally online, the question asked was – “How will I know how many people see my ad?”

An important question for all advertisers, but one hard to answer for any media outlets.

A few days ago I went to our internet server’s page that tracks statistics and found out some of the info people are wanting to know.

As of Jan. 10th, 3,880 visitors had downloaded the PDF of the entire paper – all 49 pages. We don’t know if they looked at all 49 pages, but we started getting positive e-mails about the new look of the paper by the afternoon of Jan. 1. But, once you download the paper to your computer you can look at it whenever you want – as often as you want.

Now, we have no way of telling how many people just looked at the whole paper on their browsers – our server can’t track that. Some people don’t like downloading anything. Our overall visitations to the website are holding at an average of more than 50,000 a month. Considering the holiday and the weather – that’s good.

Actually the download is just over 10mb which is smaller than some images people e-mail to us. And the download takes less than 2 minutes – sometimes less than a minute on our computers and they’re not so new. But the older your computer or browser is – it could take longer.

Now, we posted individual pages for those who don’t like to download files and we could see those numbers in the hundreds. Some pages attracted more viewers than others – those were pages with colorful ads and color images.

Carolina Arts – the website got over 20,000 visitors in that same timeframe and they looked at 10,000 different pages – some going as far back as 1999. Usually what happens in a search, a viewer finds one link to our paper and then ends up going to different places in time in our archives which date back to 1999. Regular views go straight to where they have bookmarked a page. So ten years from now people will still be looking at pages in this Jan. 2011 issue and downloading the entire PDF for a walk back in time to see what was going on in the Carolina visual art community. It’s amazing.

But our advertisers are more concerned with the present time.

If you haven’t seen our Jan. 2011 issue of Carolina Arts (www.carolinaarts.com) – what are you waiting for?

While you’re viewing that issue, we also ask you to click on some of our advertisers’ ads and go check out what they have to offer. After all, they make the paper possible. They need to know you appreciate their support.

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You may or may not have heard that Carolina Arts has gone to an online version of the paper only. Our January issue is online now at (www.carolinaarts.com). Just click on the image of the paper’s cover and you can view the paper – page by page or download the entire paper as a PDF file to view it all together.

Believe me, downloading the entire PDF file to your desktop may take some time, but it is worth it in the end. Different browsers offer different challenges. If you have an iPhone or an iPad – putting the PDF file in iBooks works great.

Some people may have problems on older computers or older systems, but we’ll be working on making viewing the paper as easy as possible. Like I’ve said before, Linda and I are learning new things as we go. Change it our current motto.

We hope you will enjoy this new version of our paper. It is the largest we have ever produced – 49 pages – filled with articles about exhibits, color ads, color images of artworks, and pages and pages of gallery listings from throughout the Carolinas.

If you would like to be part of the February issue make sure you  contact us before Jan. 24 by 5pm.

When you’re finished checking it out – e-mail your friends or post the news on Facebook. And, don’t forget to thank our supporters in any way you can. Thanks.

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Linda and I purchased our first computer in 1983 – an Apple IIe. It cost us a fortune back then, but it was well worth the cost and time spent learning how to take advantage of all the things it could do. Within years we had paid, what was at the time equal to a house payment to get an external hard drive with 30mbs of memory and another house payment for a 1/4mb of ram memory. Today, I can buy a laptop computer for the same price of those two items with 40 gigs of memory and 1 gig of ram – with CD/DVD players and burners, internal cameras, wireless internet connections and a host of other features – not even dreamed of back in 1983. Now, many versions of Apple computers later, we’re still trying to learn about all the things computers and the Internet can do to help us spread the word about the visual art community in North and South Carolina.

Although expressing my opinions about issues taking place in that art community is not a new thing – being able to do so without waiting for the latest issue of the paper to reach readers is – for me. It will now be possible to make comments on a weekly, daily or even hourly basis. That just blows my mind and concerns others who know me, but don’t worry, I’m pretty careful to make sure my opinions are based on solid ground. And, I have learned that those who talk when they are angry or emotional about issues – make mistakes and often end up saying things they didn’t mean to. Also, you are writing to a worldwide audience – you just can’t talk like your sitting in a local bar or in some friend’s living room. You have to bring your readers along with you on an issue – they need to know what you know and they need to know where that opinion is coming from, and that’s the beauty of a blog on the Internet – space is not a limitation – except for readers with a short attention span.

So, I hope you’ll join me on this journey and keep up with my postings. And, e-mail me your comments at (info@carolinaarts.com) – just make sure you put the word “blog” in the subject line.

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