Reston 2020 Blog Reaches 10,000 Visits, 18,000 Document Reads--and It's Still Growing!

Today saw the Reston 2020 blog record its 10,000^th visit, a total achieved in the less than nine months since a counter was attached to the blog.   Some 7,000 readers have visited the blog, and more than 2,000 people are repeat visitors.  

Statcounter.com, the counter used by the Reston 2020 blog, provides a wide variety of information about the who, how, and where of visits to the blog, but unfortunately only provides free data tracking for about two weeks worth of data.  Nonetheless, it is suggestive of the interest in the work of Reston 2020 and the Reston Task Force.  For example, in this brief time period:

·         The most popular blog posts have been the Wiehle Committee’s interim report to the Task Force, the letter from Marion Stillson—RCA President—to MWAA regarding the Dulles Corridor, and Terry Maynard’s commentary on the Reston Town Center draft report.  

·         The most frequent identifiable institutional visits continue to be from the Fairfax County general computing center, Fairfax County schools, and the US House of Representatives. 

·         More than one-fifth (22%) of all the recent visits have originated from Reston, and another 26% come from Herndon and Great Falls. 

o       Over 80% of all visits come from the metro DC area, possibly reflecting both Restonians accessing the site from work and the interest of other area communities in what’s happening in Reston. 

o       There continue to be occasional visits from foreign countries, led by South Africa, Finland, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and India. 

·         “Reston 2020” is by far the most used search term to reach the blog, outnumbering searches on the Reston Task Force by more than 4-to-1.  Other recent search terms have focused on specific topics, likely Wiehle, Polo Fields, Metrorail Phase II, and so on.

·         Most people enter the blog through its home address, but the second-most frequent entry point recently has been the Wiehle Committee’s interim report.  There are three ways to enter the blog at a specific post: 

o       Links provided by another blog or e-mail.  The most frequent access to the Wiehle report appears to have come from links to the Restonian, a popular and humorous local blog.

o       A second way is by clicking from the results of a specific search term, such as “Wiehle.”

o       The final way is through the Reston 2020’s Twitter account.  Reston 2020 has posted over 120 “tweets” since launching in early summer, almost all linked to a new post on the blog.  The Reston 2020 Twitter account has 40 “followers” now—people who receive each “tweet”—including the local news media, a few Reston organizations, and numerous individuals. 

Much of what has been posted on the Reston 2020 blog are “embedded” documents—reports, proposals, graphics, commentaries, and the like—that are stored in their original format on www.scribd.com and copied as is into the Reston 2020 blog.  Scribd is a digital archive of documents of all types—from cookbooks to constitutions—stored by people who wish to share them with the blogosphere. 

The results for Reston 2020’s documents are astounding:  The 180 documents Reston 2020 has embedded in the blog have been “read” (accessed) more than 18,000 times since the blog’s launch in December 2009.  That’s an average of 100 reads per document. 

·         433 reads occurred on its busiest day, June 8, 2010, the day Reston 2020 posted its series of reports for the community readership.

·         The average daily readership trend line has climbed six-fold as more documents have been added. 

o       In January 2010, 16.0 readers per day accessed the few Reston 2020 documents on Scribd. 

o       In September 2010, that average jumped to 96.6 reads per day. 

o       These documents are being read at the rate of 69 reads per day over the course of the blog’s lifetime.

·         The most read documents on Scribd are those produced by Reston 2020’s several Working Groups, including:

o       A Strawman Proposal for the Wiehle Transit Metro Station Area, RUDL Working Group (491 reads)

o       Vision for the Herndon-Monroe Station Area, RUDL WG (434 reads)

o       Parks, Recreation, and Public Facilities:  Needs for a New Master Planned Reston, PRPF WG (418 reads)

o       Proposals for Parks in North Town Center, Rando/Kaplan, RUDL WG (368 reads)

o       Introduction to the Reston 2020 Committee Work Group Effort (321 reads)

Not too far behind are the reports from the other Reston 2020 working groups. 

• These documents have been downloaded, that is, physically copied to an individual computer, 179 times from Scribd. 
• Over twenty percent of these downloads occurred in the three weeks following the publication of the Reston 2020 work group reports.
• There have also been a few downloads of items posted directly in the blog, that is, they are not embedded there via Scribd.  Virtually all of these have been images, led by images of the Comstock Wiehle Avenue development posted months ago.  

Taken together, the Reston 2020 blog, Scribd, and Twitter are enabling Restonians and others with an interest in urban planning to gain a thorough understanding of ongoing activities, their implications, and the course of the Reston planning effort.  It is exciting that this effort is garnering such a broad and growing audience.  By keeping informed, Restonians are making a difference in their community’s future. 

Terry Maynard
Administrator