during LAist times i looked at the numbers 6-7 times a DAY. id wake up and look, go to sleep and look. maybe id look 20-30 times a day.

those were tough times, there was no twitter or facebook to boost your signal.

we had to rely on google search, google news, reddit, digg even stumbleupon could do it for you sometimes.

getting traffic has always been part of my job either directly or indirectly except here.

which i love. which makes me want to get traffic for it. which is why i was thrilled to see this metric that i never knew existed.

in facebook they match you up with similar sites. i never had this at the Academy. often i would compare us to MTV or Rolling Stone because i couldn’t find any true peers other than the Grammys (who we destroyed).

but the thing about the Oscars accounts was people were thirsty for movie insights because while musicians and tv stars had no problem getting on social, movie stars rarely did. so if you did it right, which wasn’t impossible, you could be a great avenue to fill that need.

this is different.

how do you compete with two monsters like Modern LAist and the LA Times?

well just like Wee Willie Keeler once said, “hit em where they aint.”

will we have a week like this again at Los Angeleno? Wasn’t this a fluke?

Surely the LA Times with all those engagement editors and unlimited resources will wipe the floor with you next week.

probably.

but now we know we can.

learning that you can is the most important step.

the 4 minute mile, the man on the moon, the commercially viable electric car, kissing the prettiest girl at the dance.

our minds are both the greatest things ever and the worst.

most of the time it is not playing beautiful music.

most of the time it’s saying, fool, what are you thinking about doing, now?

to me, all of this is like a pinball machine.

you can look at your score during your turn

but you should probably keep your eye on the ball.