out of 125 million blogs, our very own Top of the Ticket has broken into the highly competitive Technorati Top 100! Not that long ago there weren’t any LA Times blogs even in the Top 2000, but because of the hard work of the bloggers, their editors and copy editors, they were able to take that blog straight up to the top.
congratulations Andy, Don, Scott, Diana, Meredith and everyone else who was involved in this huge accomplishment!
theres this weird belief that internet traffic is slow in the summer. people think that since the kids are out of school or because the weathers nice people dont use the web. such a lie. omg so wrong.
last month latimes.com broke a record, like no problem. it got 127 million pageviews. almost 10 per cent of that came from the blogs – 12.2 million – which doesnt seem like very much until you realize that last july la times blogs only had 2.2 million. in august you shouldnt be surprised if we can get 2.2 million from 2-3 of our blogs.
every month my boss meredith sends out a little email to the entire organization giving out the numbers. i hope she continues to have them posted on our Readers Rep blog because that way i can send a link to my mom. but since i know my mom reads the busblog, here you go ma, we did good last month! also my cohort Lindsay did real well on Your Scene, our user generated content, and its blog.
Top 20 blogs for July follow. Blog traffic broke an all-time record this month of more than 12 million page views. Tony Pierce notes that July 2007 blog page views were 2.2 million page views. Incredible growth.
1. Top of the Ticket — 1,800,770 PVs
2. The Dish Rag — 1,666,702
3. L.A. Land — 1,205,609
4. Gold Derby — 655,369
5. Show Tracker — 516,324
6. Lakers
7. Countdown to Crawford (more than 500K in its first full month)
8. Hero Complex (launched July 16)
9. Technology
10. Web Scout
11. The Big Picture
12. Booster Shots
13. The Daily Travel & Deal Blog
14. Opinion L.A.
15. The Homicide Report
16. L.A. Now
17. Ticket to Beijing (Olympics)
18. Money & Co
19. Entertainment News & Buzz
20. L.A. UnleashedYour Scene, our user-generated photo service, generated 6.6 million page views in July. Bravo to Lindsay Barnett, Your Scene producer extraordinaire.
this month expect even bigger numbers from the dish rag who has already gotten off to a huge start. top of the ticket will end the month by covering the GOP convention, our olympics blog will dominate the world, and hero complex was in the top ten last month after only being around 2 weeks therefore it will be interesting to see if it can crack a million since it will have an entire month to rock. could we have five blogs break a million in august? all signs point to hell to the yes.
has been up for less than a week. there are already over 50 mentions in the blogosphere. these are some of my faves:
Metafilter: Inventing the Bloghook
LAist: Meet LA’s Biggest Blogger (an interview)
Chicago Tribune: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s core fitness tips
Fark: Abdul-Jabbar takes up blogging. No, not the former Miami Dolphins running back, the other one
Deadspin: It’s obvious from the get-go that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s blog is going to be a daily read.
The New Republic’s The Plank: Another Blogger for Obama… Only this one’s named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Actually, Kareem’s whole blog is worth a read: There aren’t that many 7-foot-2 Hall-of-Famers out there who can still shoot a sky-hook and write intelligently about Herbie Hancock and the straitjacket of music genres.
Top of the Ticket: You couldn’t stop him on the court, you can’t stop him here from writing about his life and thoughts exclusively on LATimes.com.
LA Taco: Besides being one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Kareem is a noted historian, author, LA legend, and all-around amazing person. So far his blog is focusing on sports, black history, music, and politics. It rules, and so does Kareem.
Blogger & Podcasting: Help us interview Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Fishbowl LA: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Makes Us Feel Fat And Lazy
Will Campbell: The Night In Studio City That I Played One Game Of Tennis With Wilt Chamberlain
fly by night: Look who’s blogging
Yes but No but Yes: Abdul-Jabbar, the Blogger
Forum Blue and Gold: I’m late to this party, but I love Kareem’s new blog. Very smart, well rounded man.
Nikkola Media: LA Timesilla riittää pelisilmää bloggaajien valinnoissa. Kareem Abdul-Jabbarin korisblogi tästä hyvänä esimerkkinä.
Rawk Blog: Jazz historian and arguable greatest basketball player of all time Kareem Abdul-Jabbar weighs in on the merits of Herbie Hancock’s Grammy-winning album of the year, River: The Joni Letters.
Craig Smith’s Blog: Maybe they should Call it The Skyhook Blog
Immodest Proposals: Wit and Wisdom from a Perspective About a Foot Higher Than Most Anyone Else
What is Unseen: The skyhook, from the master. Yes, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is blogging. Which is so cool.
well before i got this dream job at the Times, i used to “write to” my local paper in this very blog. i used to say that they should hire me and welch, i used to say that they should have blogs, i used to say that they should utilize the fact that they were this huge respected paper in LA therefore why not let the celebs write about their lives in first person.
because im not (that) insane, i never really thought that all of those things would come true, let alone come true pretty quickly. but thus is the miracle of life.
steven tyler of aerosmith talks about affirmations, and even though you probably should listen to old rockers who still have it, im not sure i believe wholly in the magical power of such things… but i do believe that if you really want things you should write them down, mostly because if you dont even have the guts to enunciate them then you probably dont even believe in them yourself. and you are the start of any magic trick.
super bowl friday i was late to work. because i have the best boss in the universe there really isnt such a concept. she wants me to feel comfortable so she told me to come in whenever, leave whenever, just produce and create and manage the best blogs ever. therefore i usually get in around 10am-11am, and usually go home between 8p-9p. that doesnt mean i dont have phones ringing in the early morn or emails going back n forth in the wee hours, but this is a love more than a job. so whatevs… to the max.
anyways two fridays ago my mom was nagging me to go to the post office to pick up a package she sent. every day she kept asking if i had picked it up or reminded me that it was there so even though i was running a tad late i went, murphys law i got in a long line, but got the gift. thanx ma!
rolled into the office around 11 (embarrassed) and started going thru the emails. about 20 minutes in i see an email chain from the sports editor and my boss about the fact that kareem abdul jabbar was interested in writing every day for us. the emails started at 9am.
now most bosses would have called me frantically as soon as the talks started and screamed “why the hell arent you here yet!” but not mine. she totally has a gazillion plates spinning, as i do, and she omg trusted that i would handle this project that was clearly my responsibility. trust professionalism and honest communication. do you see why i love this woman?
so i contacted kareems manager, deborah morales, and we chatted for a few minutes, we agreed to meet on the monday after the super bowl at the times, and sure enough there was kareem on monday afternoon.
now over the super bowl weekend i picked up kareems latest book, on the shoulders of giants, which is a history of harlem during the harlem renaissance. totally fascinating, totally well written book. his sixth! in it he talked about jazz, and real estate politics, and race and culture, and, well, america. but in it he also talked about how he was once Lew Alcindor and how he is now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – that he had transformed. but what caught my eye the most was how he proclaimed that he was once a basketball player and now he is a writer.
i asked him about that line when we met and he confirmed it and i said, well theres no better place for a writer than behind a computer blogging every day. and with that me and isabel and josh (both pictured) began to show him how to blog. it was an extremely interesting afternoon where we talked about jazz and sports and politics and history and writing, among other things.
it was plainly obvious that this great man, one of my childhood heroes, was just as well rounded in real life as he came across in his book, so i recommended that if all he wanted to write about some weeks was jazz, then he should write about jazz, same for politics, same for.. football if he wanted. and since we were all still in the glow of that great superbowl, our first blog post was about how much he loved the super bowl and how his famous basketball number was inspired by his childhood hero who was the blocking back for the ny football giants back in the day. like many of my friends hear me say, i told kareem “write it down!”
and unlike you and i, after he wrote it down, he just happened to have a photo of himself with the manning brothers. it was then that i knew that this would be a very very special blog.
when it launched yesterday i was relieved, amazed, proud, but mostly thrilled that this great man was starting something that very few celebrities and/or athletes do: tell their tales on the daily in public without a net. this is a man who has met pretty much everyone you can imagine. he has had unprecedented successes (after his freshman year at UCLA he never lost a game in college). and as a pro he scored more points than everyone, yes even more than jordan.
he has full license to write about anything that he wants, in any way. it’s a real blog, it just happens to be under a famous newspaper’s masthead. im pretty sure nothing like this has ever happened before – a hall of famer writing about a wide variety of topics, not just sports. which should make this fascinating for anyone.
so yeah, start writing down your dreams, and write down what you expect to do when they come true… because they just may.
its gonna suck. i dont want to make anything that sucks. plus, it feels like work. fuck work. wanna know why this blog has gone on for over two years, cuz its never been work. its always been fun. yes ive felt an obligation to do this sometimes, but not often.
fuck this book. i dont want to run any marathon. i dont even want to put together blook II for christmas. im a lazy bastard sometimes. and you know who i blame. i blame the rum. but what else am i gonna do. when i worked at the dot com, when i got home i would work on writing newspaper ads for the company, or i would figure out how to do something smarter, or i would go through resumes. i loved that place and i loved working around those people and for them.
i want to feel that way again. i want to do something at night thats worthwhile, and writing a bunch of dirty ass porn might be hot for some of the ladies ive shared the first few chapters to but page after page after page of sex is a grind. how many ways can a man write about humping? and im too old for that shit anyway. ive seen it all. ive done it all. everything on the hetro side of the menu, i guess. writing about it… cleaning it up… making it more poetic and more sexy.. big whoop.
at night i dont know what i want to do, but its not go do my home work. shit. if i was gonna do work after work i would still belong to that fratboy gym and by now id have some rad body for the ladies to climb all over. but who wants to be lusted over cuz of their bod. theres always a bigger badder bod around the corner. why join that dumb wet tshirt contest.
i want to be passionate about something. im not passionate about this sex book of filth. this one guy said that i could always try to develop it into a movie and i was like did you hear what the hell i said, i said everyone is pretty much naked like all the time and it ends in a fuck contest at a howard johnsons during a nympho convention before during and after a blackout followed by an electrical storm caused by an approaching tornado. ron howard isnt gonna direct that shit.
a pretty girl today said if she was rich she would pay me so i wouldnt have to work and i would just write this book and make good love to her all day, and then she sent me a naked picture of herself. thats two, la times, fuckers. jim murray never got *two* chicks to send him pictures of their impossibly perfect bods just for being jim murray. but fuck the la times.
if i ran the la times you know what i would do.
id sprinkle some hi’s through the paper and pretend i didnt.
imagine youre flipping through the business section, just doing your thing and whats hi this right in the middle of a sentence. or in the gutter in the obits. or replacing the page number in the sports section. d1, d2, d3, hi, d5.
best little free gift you could ever give someone is an unexpected laugh. a smile on their face when they couldnt remember what there was to smile about.
look at that cute smile mr david letterman is sharing with the people of the world as he introduces his son harry joseph letterman to america.
priceless.
im glad to see dave smile. he’s made me smile lots of times.
i hope this helps him lighten up too.
its ok dave.
really.
but im still quitting this damn novel.
check out mindy’s halloween photo essay (scroll down a bit) + the academy + earth-info
hi, my name is tony pierce.
i would like to be your first full time blogger.
since the dawn of mankind humans have wanted to tell the story of their lives.
i’m no different.
like you, i grew up in chicago, moved to la, and took over.
i moved here a little earlier than you did, i came out here the day after my high school graduation and got my first job at a mcdonalds in santa monica.
i went to santa monica college, met a punk rock girl from malibu and lost my virginity in ventura.
i transferred to uc santa barbara and got a degree in literature from the college of creative studies.
there i worked for the college paper, the daily nexus, which, like you, had no real competition. i learned a lot.
our paper won every award that a college paper could win while i was there. i even won best arts and entertainment editor, beating schools like usc, ucla, and uc berkeley– schools that had journalism programs and advisors.
the nexus didnt have any of those things. it was magical.
after college many of my friends moved out to prague and started a newspaper. my only regret in life is that i didnt go out there with them. instead i stayed in santa barbara with my girlfriend and landed a job with a $50 billion international tech company who i represented.
after that i worked for the start up, webtv.
they got bought by microsoft, who i stayed on with but then quit to sell hot dogs, garlic fries and chablis for the san francisco giants.
after that i moved back to LA and hired 400+ people for an internet start up in westwood and when the dot com boom boomed i started editing for the tv network that i am currently employed at.
the whole time ive been writing and writing and figuring out this world wide web craze, and now i am starting to get noticed in the world of blogging.
all blogging is is a way for normal people to easily express themselves on the web without a lot of fancy software.
typically, serious bloggers update their page several times a day. like a columnist who just writes and writes and writes.
i don’t know what the philosophy of the Times is, but i know that i would have loved to read Royko several times a day, and at night, and on the weekends even if he just wrote a little blurb on a sunday night saying “i just watched the sopranos. wtf was that?”
wouldn’t you?
let rosenberg get into the details of tv. sometimes it’s nice just to have your average guy on the street give his two cents.
i think i would make a great guy on the street.
my idea for the Times Blog is to have a page on latimes.com where i would update several times a day and once or twice at night and let the people of the world know what life is really like in LA.
on the bus today a man with a walker recognized a man and they said
hey buddy.
oh, hey man
see that laker game last night?
yeah, they lost huh.
well they don’t have much of a team. shaq is hurt and foxy is suspended from that fight.
what about that new guy.
yeah, with the funny name, where’s he from, europe?
no, africa.
all this was going on while i was sitting next to a transvestite who was flipping through a trade school work book titled “Introduction of Computers and Microsoft Windows”
i looked over her shoulder to see how much i knew about computers and windows.
the first paragraph said “a computer can be broken up into four parts, external hardware, internal hardware, input devices, and output devices.”
she had this part of a sentence underlined “software, otherwise known as programs…”
we were driving south down fairfax right past santa monica blvd.
i love normal life. i also love the myth of hollywood. i would like to write about everyday life, but also cover the movie premieres, the sporting events, the rock clubs, the beaches, television. everything.
i’d probably write about everything except politics. is that okay?
okay, my fifteen minute break is almost over. so let me wrap this up.
times, i love you. i know my friends are critical of you. i am critical of you sometimes, but i want to make a truce. i say if you hire someone like me you will bridge the gap that just might be out there between the “mainstream media” and the world of blogging.
a few months ago i challenged the web to link me on 100 different sites. i gave the world a month to do it. i got 100 links in three weeks. then this summer i asked for money. the readers gave me enough money to fly to aruba and back.
imagine the traffic i could generate if i had a real blog on a real newspaper’s website. and imagine what would happen if readers from around the world finally had a chance to see los angeles, the city of their dreams, through a tiny little window of happiness and love.
and sarcasm.
and celebrity interviews.
and photo essays.
via a young single man who takes a bus to work who finally was given a break by his hometown paper.
i bet you in a month i could get 1,000 links and the entire web will be abuzz from the groundbreaking move the LA Times made by signing up one of the web’s most loved and innovative and creative bloggers.
if you want to see news blogs, you can see them on the wall street journal dot com, slate, salon, msnbc.com has six blogs, and fox news used bloggers for a daily online column (even though the writing was good, it wasn’t a good idea cuz you never knew who you’d get.)
i don’t want to do a news blog. i want to do an LA blog that focuses on life in LA.
i don’t think that any one could write one better than me. maybe welch could or layne could or rabbit could or amy could or ben or kate, but none of them could do the photo essays like me, none of them could write about dating in hollywood like me, and none of them ride the subway.
so i win.
🙂
email me, please. im serious.
p.s. yes i do plan on changing the world.
but in a sweet way that everyone, like my mom, would be proud of.
p.p.s. no one pps’s enough these days. anyhow, even if you see a diamond in the rough here it’s still a diamond. bukowski basically starved for decades while he lived in LA. i dont want to be like that. anyway. think diamond in the rough. or maybe just think diamond.
p.p.p.s. i dont think ive seen a ppps since highschool. told ya, innovative.