Hello everyone, we had some updates on Spicy Bear we wanted to share with you. Between DIGG, exciting articles at MUSE on Jazz and the Preston Ave venue, new writers at Style and a new hire, we’re really excited. All the info is after the break..
DIGG: A lot of you asked “what does it mean to be on the front page of DIGG?” The answer is, a lot. DIGG is this enormous website that ranks articles based on user votes. Popular websites go to the top, unpopular articles are lost in the heap. Getting to the front page of DIGG is really hard because it’s controlled by a relatively small group of influential people, so you must either have a really good article or you must know one of them. When we were publishing the unfortunate news about LeRoi Moore, we had the story before it was in the media and the DIGG community responded. It was pretty exciting giving Blue Ridge InternetWorks a call at 10PM on a weeknight and them actually responding and getting ready for more web traffic than any Charlottesville media company had seen in one day (I think).
The short story is we got 25,000 visits last Wednesday or about 16 times our normal daily average. We didn’t crash and thanks to BRI for that! We would have died without them.
cvilleMUSE: We had two really amazing articles over at MUSE recently. First off, Shaun has another scoop on the Preston Ave Venue, this time it sounds like it’s not dead. Secondly, one of our longtime readers, Byard, now a local Jazz expert, wrote an excellent article covering a Week of Jazz in Charlottesville. Both of these articles are gems that shouldn’t be missed.
cvilleStyle: Haidee has been slowly, but surely, building a team of amazing people who are helping with cvilleStyle. I’ll let you discover their Style, but I had the pleasure of meeting HeatherM, Ashley Simpson and Dr. Erin Davis the other night, and you are in for a treat!
New Hire: This week, we welcomed Kelli O’Brien to our team. She’s going to split her time between advertising sales and marketing. She was formerly doing pharmaceutical sales for a regional company. She brings a journalism degree from Ole Miss, experience with a local Style paper, and a lot of energy to Spicy Bear. She recently moved to town; be sure to welcome Kelli if you see her!
Other: We’re looking for contributors to cVillain, too, so let us know if you are interested in doing a regular column or feature.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Tagged as: Charlottesville, cvillemuse, cvillestyle, fun, hires, media, News, spicy bear
Psst…Kyle…it’s Ole Miss.
Thanks, Echo. Fixed.
Can you link to the story that jumped up to the top on Digg? Cvillain and Digg are two of my favorite places to waste time during the day, so that is like worlds colliding.
http://digg.com/music/Dave_Matthews_Band_Saxophonist_LeRoi_Moore_Has_Passed_Away
Psst, Kyle, it’s “formerly,” not “formally.” Assuming you meant what she was doing before joining Spicy Bear. Unless, she was in eveningwear and gloves.
Apparently, I did not have enough coffee today.
congrats, spicy bears! It’s the uncomfortable truth in media that tragedy yields big money making days.
But with reasonable certainty, I can say that this :
is super untrue. unless you mean new media company? still, 16x the traffic is something to be proud of.
A warm welcome to Kelli O’Brien! She’s what, thor244? Welcome!
If anyone would like to check out art exhibits around town and critique them for MUSE let us know.
dear shen: i would like to. is that sufficient?
@10: Email pinkie@spicybear.com for more deets you awesome person you.
@11. sweet. done. merci bien.
Gotta’ say, while I’ve been critical in the past of this blog for turning its user base into revenue, this whole DIGG thing is pretty low class. You guys do realize that you’re literally trafficking in death?
Actually, it’s clear that you don’t realize it given that you had the rather callous nerve to write, “The short story is we got 25,000 visits last Wednesday or about 16 times our normal daily average. We didn’t crash and thanks to BRI for that! We would have died without them.”
Talk about not having enough coffee…you actually wrote, “We would have died without them” in reference to your ISP securing you addtl. bandwidth to accommodate traffic from a posting about an actual death.
Nice job.
I don’t see how much revenue there is to gain with this blog. It has like…one…ad.
@13 I never would have associated the two had you not brought it up. I suppose you don’t like watching the news either since they rely on bad weather, traffic accidents, child molestation and wars to drive their ratings. The point is, cVillain was actually credited for breaking a story. Good job guys (for real, no snark)!
@15 hold on there- the news wasn’t broken here, It was reported on a west coast blog first. It might have been “confirmed” here first but that is debatable. No one owns the news unless you have an exclusive; this wasn’t that.
Reporting it first is no substitute for reporting it best. (I have no problem how it was report here)
@15 - so, you mean to tell me that if Shane Edinger was reporting the LeRoi story on NBC 29 and actually made the same comment that Kyle did above - “We would have died without them,” there would be no blowback? No complaints? Puh-lease.
It’s just so disingenuous for cVillain to claim to serve the “community,” when Kyle’s post above makes it pretty clear that the goal is ultimately self-serving and doesn’t preclude thoughtless remarks about the dead person that led to cVillain’s biggest traffic day.
@16 - if you were more familiar with cVillain, you’d know that as long as a story is posted here, they own it.
We actually own the Internet.
@17 You’re right. There would be blow back, especially from highly opinionated chronic complainers that love to take statements out of context to prove their point. The point of “Kyle’s post above” was not to provide the news of LeRoi Moore’s death, that had already been taken care of, it was to share with us what was going on at Spicy Bear HQ (see post title). When taken in context, and the context is obvious not tricky, this post was not disrespectful in any way.
@16 You’re right (non snarky version). The news was broken on the west coast. However, my reference was to the news being broken locally ahead of other media outlets. I should’ve been more specific. Again I say, grow Spicy grow!
@17 own the story because it’s posted ??? I will assume you are kidding because that’s old media thinking
@19 - Let me clarify since I did mess up my analogy in post #17:
There would have been serious repercussions for any tradmed outlet carelessly - and callously, exclaiming “we would have died without them” while reporting on the success they saw via their reporting on the death of a local celebrity.
Is that better stated? And really, I can’t decide which is worse, throwing out that phrase while reporting on the actual death or throwing out the phrase while sharing excitement about the spike in traffic because of the story.
Not very ingratiating to the community at large (though not much of an issue since the community at large isn’t really involved with cVillain at this point in time).
Well we’ll have to agree to disagree which is okay to do as adults. I just think hairs are being split in order to facilitate disliking the site. Again I’ll say that the post Kyle made his comment on had nothing to do specifically with his death. Would it have been better had he said “a certain recent posting led to a spike in site activity”? Splitting hairs….
His meaning Mr. Moore’s…not Kyle’s.
/creeped out by how that sounded.
@19 Cont’….
I just read my post and you know, I can be a fairly insensitive person prone to putting my foot in my mouth at times, but I can’t believe that you really think that it “was not disrespectful in any way” for Kyle to write “we would have died without them” in reference to cVillain’s ISP providing addtl. bandwidth due to a huge spike in traffic caused by cVillain reporting on LeRoi’s death???
I’m going to sign off for a few hours and make sure my head isn’t clouded by internet stupidity syndrome…maybe I’m overreacting.
Maybe I’ll mull over the irony that Red Light owns the ISP in question…
@22: It was unfortunate wording that nobody noticed until you pointed out. After the funeral of my uncle who committed suicide, I was talking with a distant relative about something and she exclaimed, “it makes you wanna shoot yourself!” about some trying situation. I didn’t punch her in the face and call her an insensitive bitch I just winced and realized it was a slip.
As for Kyle being excited about the site getting a lot of traffic, it’s understandable. He’s done a lot for this site and seeing it do well would be great. It’s too bad the increase was in relation to a tragedy but it was still an unprecedented event for the site.
@25 There’s a difference between disrespect and poor word choice. Well put Shen. We’ve all done it, I’ve done it, you’ve done it, Shen’s distant relative did it and in no way was it disrespectful…unfortunate, untimely, but I’m sure Kyle didn’t say to himself, “I need to make some comment about LeRoi Moore’s death that will be so sneaky only HoH will notice it and ride it as me being an insensitive, self centered, disrespectful jackass.”
/Hoping Kyle didn’t say that…
I don’t think something has to be intentional to be insensitive or disrespectful. HOH is entitled to his opinion about the wording. I actually noticed it too, but didn’t comment on it.
Personally, I’m glad Kyle told us about the spike in traffic and that we made the front page of DIGG. A lot of people put a lot of time into this community, and I’m sure people were pleased to find out that our little corner of the interweb was actually being seen by the “world” instead of just the same 2,000 people. Think about the work Spicy Bear puts into this site, and they finally got some recognition outside of Cville. Could the message have been worded differently? Absolutely, but in our modern day language, we use phrases like “We would have died without them”. We also use the words “war” and “enemy” to describe sporting events when there is an actual war with actual enemies going on. Sorry if we aren’t PC enough for you, but if this turns into a site where everything has to be politically correct all the time, no one is going to want anything to do with it.
@29 that’s kind of taking it a bit far into the land of hyperbole. dude had an opinion about what is arguably a poor choice of words. he’s entitled. you’re entitled to think it’s not a big deal. nobody’s trying to get all Tipper Gore on here. this is a place of opinions & discourse, no?
/again with the “we”? that is the kind of stuff that makes people not want anything to do with this site.
@28 No one is negating his right to an opinion. In fact, if anyone did, his s/n would be misused. Just sharing my half of how I saw it. In the end, the point of this post is that good things are happening for Spicy Bear and the crew there. Good for them.
What’s wrong with “we”? It’s not a royal we or anything, it’s a general we, inclusive of the community that is cVillain.
@30: I’m sorry, I was under the impression that this was a community forum that was open to the public to shape and mold into whatever they see fit. I used “we” because I consider everyone who as ever said anything on here to be a part of that community, including you.
“Sorry if we aren’t PC enough for you” sounded like a specific “we,” not an everyone (including HOH & me) “we.” If it’s not, that’s cool.
/doesn’t even really know what PC means anymore. I use a Mac.
OMG can we stop already.
Which “we” are you talking about?
Stop beating me. Please.
@36: I want to personally attack you right now
Ah, see? Suggestion Box was right…
I’m putting my iHands around your e-neck…
No thanks, I’m taken.
Had the rest of the day to mull this over…
Still think it was an absolute piss poor choice of words - and counter to Spicy Bear’s desire to grow and be more inclusive of - and to serve, the community at large. Especially in light of the way this particular death impacted this particular community and Kyle’s complete lack of sensitivity to the success of cVillain literally trafficking off said death.
Never said it was intentional - it’s clear that it wasn’t, but that doesn’t make it ok. My point is, Kyle and Spicy Bear should be a bit more sensitive in word choice when celebrating the success of their site when said success was directly due to the death of an important member of the community Spicy Bear is trying to serve.
@27 - The poor word choice was disrespectful. Unless you’re claim that disrespect requires such poor word choice to be intentional?
I agree with HOH and 26.
/poor choice of words at the time.
@42 HOH… I agree this was a huge PR faux pas but really…. this is a tiny company of daring people trying to make something happen. Their inappropriate phraseology escaped all but the most discerningly critical eye. Why do you keep riding their ass about this? We spent most of today making dick puns… surely you can admonish them about some recent fresh meat and let this one go. You have perversely managed to make what was a minor gaffe into a major troll fest and I think you are capable of so much more.
/ I love your use of piss poor. I may have an e-crush brewing……
Gee, people, folks make mistakes happen all the time, and in times of grief, it seems more acute, but give everyone a break at those times. Meanwhile, I was listening to the radio this afternoon while driving the progeny to all their appointed appointments and heard carole king’s “Jazz Man”. I was in tears thinking of LeRoi and thought “how fucking appropriate and wouldn’t that be a wonderful attestment to the man and his talent”.
OK, just being incredibly vulnerable, hear. Will stop. Please make me stop.
Backup….that is a sweet sentiment, and I think we are trying to say the same thing… ie:cut them some slack and move the fuck on. Correct me if I am wrong.
the best part about this thread was that almost everybody had an extremely valid point, and crafted it well.
sorry, deadhorse@37. you came out hard but didn’t make the cut.
i would like to move the fuck on.
Parlie..wtf happened to R2 and the fat suit?
i’m actually blogging from turkmenistan, which i’m not even sure is still a country. but no matter, i didn’t go to r2, i made all that stuff up. this opium is incredible.
No, you’re no. Admit it. Now.