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Collecting the ball on half way he scorches past the first defender but his dash for the line is cut off by a posse of four Springboks. There's no way anyone could squeeze past them on the outside so Shane instead swerves and heads straight for them. They slow down a moment, and in that nanosecond create a blindside where none had existed before. Shane switches direction again and accelerates back out on an outside arc leaving four of them collapsed in a heap. Shane scores an impossible try against all normal odds. A moment of genius to treasure forever.
Perhaps there is a Badger connection, though. A quick footed, intelligent and small player can beat a troop of bigger slower less nimble opponents. Yes, I like that. Watch this with joy...
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It's a remarkable achievement by Simon, Sarah, Martin and the rest of the crew - and also a real testament to the power of patience when it comes to websites. If you build it properly, they will come. The question is can we now make money from them?
We've had some very positive meetings with the ad team and creative solutions guys recently - and we now have a real success story to take to the buyers. With apologies to Han Solo, I've got a good feeling about this...
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Den of Geek's monthly total was 221,471, up a shade on April and still well ahead of the 200k mark. We expect a big increase in June - the monthly total stands at almots 250k after just two days. Could we tip half a million? I surely hope so.
Meanwhile London is Free also been showing a strong surge - albeit from a lower base. Its May total was a hefty 35% ahead on April, coming in at 45,824 according to DART. Google recorded a 30% rise to 44,729. The site is obviously showing strong seasonal gains as the Summer approaches as well as picking up a couple of useful referees, most notably BBC.co.uk.
Know Your DSLR, our fledgling digital camera sited, posted its first monthly total with 1516 unique users generating a healthy 18,072 ad impressions. Not a bad debut and a nice solid ratio of impressions per user.
The anti-eco-town site the BARD Campaign also makes its first appearance with a 1080 unique user tally and 8132 page impressions.
Know Your Mobile
Absolute unique visitors - 311,228 (up 9% on April 08)
Page impressions - 861,603 (up 1%)
Ad impressions (DART) - 2,887,874 (up 1%)
London is Free
Absolute unique visitors - 45,824 (up 35%)
Page impressions - 188,426 (up 36%)
Ad impressions - 565,278 (up 36%)
Den of Geek
Absolute unique visitors - 221,471 (up 1%)
Page impressions - 458,217 (down 5%)
Ad impressions - 1,374,651 (down 5%)
Know Your DSLR
Absolute unique visitors - 1516
Page impressions - 6024
Ad impressions - 18,072
The BARD Campaign
Absolute unique visitors - 1080
Page impressions - 8132
Ad impressions - n/a
Total Project Badger sites:
Absolute unique visitors - 571,870 (up 6%)
Page impressions - 1,528,048 (up 3%)
Ad impressions - 4,559,748 (up 3%)
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Den of Geek's recent hot run continued spectacularly in the first two days of June: in 48 hours the site attracted a staggering 249,793 absolute unique users. The record-breaking daily double whammy followed referral links from both Digg.com and - somewhat curiously - the massive Hollywood gossip site PerezHilton.com. Other links from Reddit.com, Fark.com and I-am-bored.com also fattened up the final figure.
The article that got all the attention was a simple round-up of all the sequels that Hollywood is currently churning out. It seems people never tire of reading about and linking to the sheer craven lack of imagination of La La Land, but plaudits to Simon Brew for flogging this particular horse so wonderfully.
So even though June is just three days old now, the DoG guys have notched up their third monthly record on the trot. We've also started pushing registrations for the newsletter by offering the carrot of a new 3G Apple iPhone to one lucky reader. The signs are that this is hitting the right spot - over 100 people signed up on Tuesday alone.
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The link is to a spoiler-free review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It seems that thousands of nerds have been anticipating this film enormously and are doing their best to avoid learning anything that might spoil their enjoyment. So the fact that this was headlined as 'spoiler free' (as in it gives away no plot surprises) has opened the floodgates.
It's early days yet but in just two-and-a-half hours Slashdot has referred over 16,000 readers to Den of Geek. Whether it will beat the daily record of 43,227 shovelled over by IMDB.com is anyone's guess - but things are looking good so far.
Update: In the end Den of Geek notched up 48,768 visitors throughout the day - just short of the IMDB-sponsored record of 51,960. The main Slashdot site pushed over 26,664 while entertainment.slashdot.org accounted for 13,273. The other good news was that the site was up 100% throughout the day despite the surge in numbers. Cheers to Guy and Dan at NetGenie for that. All in all a very good day.
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We're sad to announce that one of our original badgers, Rhys Lewis, is moving out of the sett. Rhys - who was a brilliant managing editor - is joining IDG as managing editor of CIO magazine and website at IDG. We wish him well and will no doubt have some tearful parting ceremony in two weeks' time.
In the meantime we have to find a replacement - if such a thing is possible. In fact we don't think it is, so we're on the lookout for a writer/editor rather than a managing editor - to reflect the sheer amount copy we need to produce for four websites. The job ad appears below...
Online writer/editor - Full Time, Central London
Project Badger - the new website development arm of Dennis Publishing - is looking for a new online writer and editor to work across its range of websites.
The successful candidate must be flexible and creative as during the day he or she could be writing and editing on websites as varied as Know Your Mobile, Den of Geek, London is Free and Know Your DSLR - which have a combined monthly audience of over 540,000 readers.
You will be part of a small self-contained team in the Dennis New Product Development division and must be comfortable performing a wide range of tasks including writing copy, editing copy, commissioning freelance writers, converting text to HTML, image editing/uploading, website traffic analysis and working with several content management systems.
You will also be expected to take a full and active part in the the conception, construction and launch of new websites for Project Badger. If you like strict demarcation lines and knowing exactly what you'll be doing each day then don't apply.
The post would particularly suit people with an interest in new technology such as mobile phones, digital cameras, consumer electronics and digital media.
The sucessful candidate will be educated to degree level and have the following skills:
- Excellent writing and editing abilities
- Good HTML (eg Dreamweaver, BB Edit)
- Good image editing (Photoshop, Fireworks, Paint Shop Pro) and correct usage of the various web image formats (Gif, Jpeg, PNG)
- A good understanding of search engine optimisation (SEO), usability and information architecture
- Experience with content management systems (CMS)
- The ability to work as both a self-starter and as part of a small team
- A flexible, creative and open-minded outlook and the ability to learn new skills quickly
Proven video creation and editing skills would also reflect well on the candidate.
For that candidate we can offer a competitive salary, excellent benefits, a central London location and the opportunity to work in a company ranked by the Sunday Times as one of the UK's 100 best places to work.
To apply, please send a CV and covering letter to mat_toor@dennis.co.uk.
Closing date: 6 June 2008
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Both stories had images in them too.
Which is nice.
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We've added a new feature on London is Free - a table of the most popular events on the website. You would think that something like this would be relatively easy to create, but it's not. In fact it's something we wanted to include on the DI websites for years but never managed to do it because of the complexity of mixing two distinct elements: analytical data (eg how many people viewed a page) with the content management system.
It would be a lot easier if we wanted to track most commented on articles, because comments are generally integrated with the CMS to allow publishing, editing, deleting etc. But we wanted to track and display the most viewed articles, a different proposition entirely.
In the end our intrepid programmer Lin ended up using Google Analytics to send a daily analytical email to a Google Group that he's set up specially for it. The Group in turn would automatically translate that incoming email into an XML feed that could be picked up by Yahoo Pipe - an online programmer's tool that allows you to 'parse' (or filter) a feed down to the relevant elements.
That filtered XML feed was then sent back to the Movable Type CMS to be displayed on each page of the London is Free website, automatically updated at the end of each day.
Nobody said it was easy. But it works and we have a lovely Top 10 Events feature that adds some nice stickiness throughout the site. And the code is easily portable - so we could easily bung it on any other Badger website with relatively little fuss. They just need to have the Google Analytics code - which they all do.
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Den of Geek's golden month continued this Saturday with a really nice review of the site in the Guardian Guide. Reviewer Johnny Dee praised DoG's breadth of content, 'fine rants' and 'gooey appreciations' of left-field actors such as Peter Krause and concluded: "A site overflowing with good stuff... Not so much a den as a veritable warren of geeky wonder."
With such praise heaped upon us it seems churlish to point out the online review's trademark Grauniad typo. So we won't. Thank you very much.
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