Thursday 29 July 2010

Starting an online paper: 'Mood swings that would make a crystal meth addict blink in disbelief'


Editor Stewart Kirkpatrick (above) has blogged on allmediascotland about the first six months of Scotland's new online newspaper, the Caledonian Mercury.
He writes: "Since we launched in January, more than 700,000 people have visited the site, looking at more than 1.5million pages. We have more than 1600 fans on both Facebook and Twitter. We're cracking the advertising nut and while our committed team of writers have had to be patient at times, we have started to pay them a decent amount."
Kirkpatrick, the former editor of scotsman.com, adds: "We've made a bunch of technical tweaks under the hood, We've worked out an 'elevator pitch' to describe ourselves: 'The Economist meets the Huffington Post drinking Irn Bru.'”
He adds, however: "But, ye gods and little fishes, it's been tough. I've worked harder than I've ever worked. I've spent months slaving away 18 hours a day, seven days a week. I've endured mood swings that would make a crystal meth addict blink in disbelief: bouncing from despair to exultation as traffic or revenue or story count rose and fell, fell and rose.
"But it has been worth it. We have a large and solid audience, a strong social media presence, increading revenue streams and a clear vision of who we are and what we're for."

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