Concord NH Patch Turns 4

Concord NH Patch turns 4 today! On June 17, 2011, the Patch news and community website here in Concord, one of 12 online news sites covering 13 communities in New Hampshire and one of more than 900 across the country, went live.

While the site has gone through a number of changes during that last four years, including redesigns and content changes, a lot of things have stayed the same – it still offers breaking news, thorough crime reports, interactivity on our social networks, and the ability for readers and contributors to post items on the site, like Paul Brogan, who was named the best blogger in the state last year.

While thinking about the last four years last night, I was simply astonished by the amount of work I’ve been able to produce, especially after moving from working on one site to 11 sites about 18 months ago. It’s stunning, actually. At the same, the accomplishments here in Concord have been outstanding, too.

The site’s audience has tripled in the last year to about 300,000 to 350,000 unique visitors each month. During the last 12 months, the site recorded about 3.3 million page views. The most viewed story, BTW, during that time was this UFO in Boscawen update post that was aggregated nationally by a couple of news outlets.

The “likes” on our Facebook page have nearly doubled since last June. As of this writing, the site has more than 9,100 likes (up from about 4,800+ this time last year).

In the last four years, the site has twice been named a Best Website by the New Hampshire Press Association. It has featured both local and national breaking news stories. We watched as Scott Brown was chased down in a canoe by a political tracker and caught Mitt Romney’s son making a birther joke during the last first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary. It has also offered in-depth coverage not seen anywhere else like analysis of the financial problems with the Complete Streets Main Street project, construction issues with the city’s new $90.8 million elementary schools, the controversial hiring of a school business administrator, which was received a Right to Know award by the NHPA, and the increase of deaths in New Hampshire due to heroin.

The success of Concord NH Patch though really is about all of you – our readers who click on posts and stories and share them, our advertisers who keep us fed, and our contributors who post items to keep the site so busy, too.

It would not be possible to do what I do without you. And for that, I thank you all so very much!

Best, Tony

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QgYz9GjFvMA