A "Defining Moment" for ATS - March, 2011

Over the past several years, at least since we started placing a strong focus on the discussion board of ATS way back in 2003 with the acquisition of our first dedicated server, there have been several "defining moments," most have been good, one or two perhaps not so good. But March of 2011 has seen an extremely significant "defining moment" for our domain and our members, one that has the potential to redefine the meaning of "ATS" as perhaps, "Alternative Top Stories."

As the graphic below shows, we received some incredibly significant traffic over the past ten days, most of which is directly related to topics dealing with the horrific events in Japan. On it's own, double our normal daily traffic is a rather significant event, but... something totally unexpected and highly serendipitous happened, two people from my "distant" past sought me out.

One was a former client from my advertising days who now works in the marketing department at a major news and information publishing company. She related that people in her department (and down the hall in the "research" division) were following the events in Japan on this non-traditional looking website. She finally asked someone what they were reading, they said, Above Top Secret, and she immediately thought, "Isn't that Bill's site?" When I was leaving the world of advertising, she thought I was crazy, and even tried somewhat hard to change my mind. But when the people in the research department said, "This site is faster and more reliable than anything else we've seen regarding what's happening in Japan," she now admits I made the right choice.

Sure enough, this big news and information publisher shows just over 4,000 visits to ATS in our Google Analytics reports in the past ten days. Other big visitors in the media business during the past ten days are:
Fox News --- 3,787 visits
New York Times --- 2,814 visits
Newsweek --- 2,203 visits
Associated Press --- 2,016 visits
NewsCorp --- 2,004 visits
(among many others)

She had become friends with former executive of my old ad agency employer, who is now at a medium-sized independent agency in LA, and let him know what she found out. It turned out people in his office were also on ATS, getting reliable non-mainstream information on the likelihood of radiation fallout in California. He had forgotten that ATS is where I went after detoxing myself from the ad world, and was floored. I just spoke with him, and his IT guy is a member and very impressed with our site performance with all the high traffic.

When I spoke with both people on the phone, their gushing praise was directed toward our members. They were stunned by the quality and quantity of information you provided, as well as the incredible collaboration going on in cross-checking and verifying just about everything that was posted. They also both went out of their way to give a glowing review of the civility of the conversation happening here, "unlike anything anywhere else," is essentially their exact words.


I have to agree.

I've never been more proud of our members, or more astonished at what you can do when you collaborate. The high post-frequency threads on events in Japan were simply amazing. You were analyzing important aspects of the events in Japan long before such topics entered the thought-process of mainstream media. The running threads became a superlative cooperative exchange that showed incredible research, expertise, compassion, concern, and cogent speculation on every one of hundreds of pages.

And the rest of the Internet seems to agree. During the peak of the activity, Quantcast reported our daily global traffic as exceeding that of ABCnews.com and CBSnews.com. (And our 30-day average traffic still exceeds ABCnews.com)

The traffic spike illustrated below speaks volumes about what you were posting during this stressful time.

Normally, a very-good day (as shown on Monday, March 7) is around 200,000 total visits and close to 150,000 unique visitors (some people have more than one session per day via different computers). During the peak, on March 15th, we saw an amazing 347,126 visits and 259,220 unique visitors. And even our typically slow Saturdays were seeing stunning traffic.





The horror in north-east Japan is beyond the imagination of most of us. Combining the events in Japan with an already stressful world environment, people are searching for more information that what is being fed to them by the mainstream. And there has never been a more clear indication that you, our members of ATS, are now on the front-line of playing a major role in filling the gaps left by the mainstream.

This is your defining moment.

Well done my friends. Very well done.

Thanks for the kind words SO. I view ATS as a large (sometimes dysfunctional :lol family.Sometimes we spat and squabble.Sometimes we give each other encouragement or advice when feeling down or lost.Some of us are funny.Some are brainy.Some are the peacemakers.
But we ALL bring something to the table in some way, whether it be large or small.

All good stuff.

That's great in a way, but at the same time, I can only think that this is going to bring lots of attention to ATS that we may not necessarily want. I'm thinking of 3-letter agencies, Cass Sunstein and Sen. Rockefeller talking about how conspiracy theories on the internet are a threat to "national security."


People are definitely shifting away from MSM for their news, and if we should forget why this is the case, it will keep shifting and diversifying yet.

YAY!

Yes, Yes, Yes ... I'm sure many on here will attest that they heard 'x' here first , told a.n. other family member it was on ATS and then eventually the MSM picked up on it (either here or elsewhere) and it became 'news'.

Congratulations - well deserved .

Originally posted by bsbray11
I can only think that this is going to bring lots of attention to ATS that we may not necessarily want.

That's been a common concern we've heard at various stages of our growth... one I don't share.

First - I my experience tells me "they" aren't nearly as adept at covertly "following" people as most seem to think here on ATS.

Second - There comes a point where our scale is unstoppable, which may have just happened.

People have a way of knowing (feeling) when they aren't being told everything. The 'net has made it easier then ever to seek out information, for those who are willing to do the work. Very good to see that so many are doing so.

so not only are we the top conspiracy site
we are begining to be recognised as the
"best site on the net to get the info on whats happening"
can i suggest
ats news should be televised so the whole planet can find out whats really happening

xploder
tips hat to the crew

reply to post by SLAYER69


A very Happy Birthday to you and may you have many many more. I would like to say a huge congratulations to the wonderful contributors on ATS. Some very intelligent and thought provoking threads on current events have taught me things I would never have learned anywhere else. Thats what bought me here in the first place. Job well done!!

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Way to go ATS. I call this site home and is always on in my Google Chrome browser, on 24/7 since Apr. 2009. Why, you may ask? Because of the people and the professionalism of this site, content too.

Congrats ATS and happy first day of Spring as well.

Rhain

ps. Happy Birthday Slayer!

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Second - There comes a point where our scale in unstoppable, which may have just happened.

I hope so. I suppose the worst case scenario at this point would be if the site was simply shut down for some bogus emergency reason or etc. I agree that you can't drown out everyone with DoD and Army sergeants posing as 13 year old kids.


I do get virtually all my news here though. It's great.

These are jaw-dropping stats for a non-mainstream site like this. Kudos to all those who have worked so diligently to be timely and accurate, too. Congrats, ATS!

Congrats to all ATS Members...

I was here in awe from within the hour that the earthquake in Japan was originally reported...

And followed it diligently, learning every step of the way... pages and pages every minute reading through every one of them...

ATS is my news source for everything important, especially in the last weeks. Learning everything you need to know about nuclear reactors, radiation, nuclear fuel, and our environment to make educated, informed, and successful choices in reaction to a disaster, and averting further disaster and panic on a global scale. Awesome!


Thinking back... one of the greatest and funniest moments I've seen so far in terms of staying up to date is a member going out and talking with his neighbor about ATS threads... spreading from online to local community source... how great that is. I know I've used a ton of the information gleaned from these recent topics to educate my family and friends around me about what is and is not a threat.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Awesome numbers!

I routinely come here for breaking news, conversation, and thought provoking threads. Though I rarely post, I thoroughly enjoy this site.

Nice job to you, and your Mods, and administrators.

And Kudos to the ATS community as well!

This is very great news! I'm proud of each and everyone of our members and followers (even if you just joined today ). With all this attention, please don't lose sight in the things that matter the most. Power kills .

I just wanted to pop in and thank the membership of ATS (Staff included) for the hard work that so many put into making this the best site on the Internet. You people rock and there wouldn't be an ATS without you!

Oh, and thank you to the folks who risked their fortunes, and gave their endless labors to providing us all with this little slice of cyberspace to call "home:.. Ya'll rock too!

Congratulations to the ALL that built this site.

When I saw FOX NEWS was pulling news right off this site.

I thought, dang these guys are on to something.

Way to Go...

fantastic news
ATS is the best and most accurate site for news
i couldnt imagine my life without it
any other news on the www is all rumours until ive corroborated the news on here
thank you to every single member whether a small one time poster or a regular!