Meredith Artley Executive Editor Los Angeles Times

Information regarding the online edition of the Los Angeles Times from executive editor Meredith Artley.

Colleagues:

We broke an all-time traffic record in October with 98.5 million page views. That’s up 48% over this time last year and oh, so close to 100 million, our new, easy-to-remember goal.

The coverage of the California fires led the rise in traffic – we broke an all-time daily record on Tuesday, Oct. 23, with 8.1 million page views that day alone. What happened on our site and within this organization that week was truly outstanding. Scores of metro reporters and editors contributed hundreds of posts to the breaking news blog. The Web copy desk handled a huge amount of original content for the site. User-generated video was launched. The homepage was redesigned to include a new template with public service-oriented links. The Web tech team came up with the idea to create a database to help displaced evacuees find each other. Reporters created an interactive Google map that Google linked to from their maps homepage. The graphics team published explanatory interactives and perhaps the coolest old-fashioned graphic ever seen on the Web. Our video offering included unique “voices” pieces from our videographers and live video from KTLA. We even Twittered (definition here). Our stunning staff photography received millions of page views. Our reader-generated photography also did very well, in part proving that readers are using latimes.com as a place to gather and share information that they can provide each other, a fantastic place for us to be. The list of names that contributed to this coverage is long and there were many departments that made the site a true reader service.

October was not only about the fire coverage – both entertainment and The Envelope doubled their traffic, year over year. Speaking of The Envelope, it has a new design that launched Nov. 2.

The Autos team launched “Up to Speed,” a new blog, and the section was redesigned to expose those fresh blog posts and provide easier access to our great original videos, authoritative reviews and more.

Coming: The Guide will launch this month. We will start by “soft-launching” this new site, linking to it from places such as Calendar Live (which it will eventually replace) before we do the full-court press. This is truly an incredible local entertainment resource for our readers, who will soon see a deep, customizable site that lets them find out just about anything going on in this city, rate/review/comment on it, find out what’s happening in more than 100 neighborhoods, create and share lists, use interactive maps, view and upload photos and video and much more. You will be hearing a lot more about this coming addition to the site.

The Readers’ Representative Journal is launching in the coming weeks, creating a new communication line between us and our readers.

We will launch breaking news e-mail alerts in mid-November and other basic improvements to the e-mail newsletters, like text and html options, are coming. Design improvements are planned for the articles, small things like making the “next page” buttons easier and giving more visual attention to comments.

And later tonight, the logo at the top of the site will switch to simply “Los Angeles Times” in the familiar gothic font. We’re making this change to show what the fire coverage proved and what readers know – we are one news organization with multiple platforms.


Top blogs for October:

1. Breaking News Blog: California Fires - 744,067 page views (PVs)
2. Homicide Report - 358,728 PVs (up from 205,915 in September)
3. Lakers - 350,848 PVs
4. Show Tracker
5. Envelope: Gold Derby
6. Envelope: Dish Rag
7. L.A. Land
8. Top of the Ticket
9. Daily Travel & Deal Blog
10. Opinion L.A.
11. Varsity Times Insider
12. All Things Trojan
13. What’s Bruin
14. Bottleneck Blog
15. Dodgers
October (new all-time record): 3,008,179 page views
September (previous record): 2,331,484 PVs


Top videos for the month:

1. State fire chief discusses resources to battle blazes – KTLA
2. 15-truck pile-up on I-5 – AP
3. Fire sights and sounds – AP
4. Fires burn from Santa Barbara to San Diego – AP
5. Live video (mostly fire coverage) – KTLA
6. Evening update on the wildfires – KTLA
7. California wildfires force… – CNN
8. La Jolla-area streets buckle – AP
9. Lakers media day – LAT (Myung Chun)
10. Kobe: ‘Buss comments are a distraction’ – KTLA


Top articles:

1. An unlikely treasure-trove of donors for Clinton (Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger)
2. Fires: Road closures and evacuations (metro staff)
3. Fires: More evacuations and new fires (metro staff)
4. Seven clues that ‘Potter’s’ Dumbledore was gay (Deborah Netburn)
5. George Lucas planning Star Wars TV series (Geoff Boucher)
6. Massive evacuations ordered as onslaught of fires spreads (Tony Perry, Garrett Therolf and Mitchell Landsberg)
7. Fires: Arson suspect killed, another arrested (Hector Becerra and Maeve Reston)
8. Massive sweep deports hundreds (Anna Gorman and Andrew Blankstein)
9. Computers, photos for new “Indiana Jones” stolen (Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein)
10. High school sports results (Sports staff)


Top photo galleries:

1. Reader Photos: SoCal Fires Rage
2. YourScene fire photos
3. Day 3: Southern California fires continue
4. Day 4: A glimmer of hope
5. Day 2: Fires rage on
6. Day 1: Fires erupt
7. Pileup on I-5
8. Day 5: Making progress
9. Southern California fire perimeters
10. Celebrity shots


Thanks for reading.

Meredith Artley
Executive Editor, LATimes.com
213.473.2694