If someone were to ask me how many Mets blogs and sites there were when MetsMerized first started, I would have probably guessed 10-12 and half of those sites are not even around anymore. It’s amazing how much has changed over the years.
Today I would say there are well over 100 different Mets sites on the web. There isn’t a team in all of baseball that gets as much coverage as the New York Mets – just ask SportSpyder who gathers them all in one convenient site.
The reason I bring this up is because Mets fans today have it really good. You have dozens upon dozens of great choices to get your fill of Mets news and opinion. There’s a lot of great sites out there.
I just want all of you to know that me and everyone else behind Mets Merized Online are grateful for your support. Our readership and traffic continues to break new records every month. Just this month alone we topped 300,000 page views five times already – that’s 1.5 million when you do the math.
We know you have many choices and we want to thank you for continuing to make Metsmerized one of those daily stops. Our analysis tells us that the average MMO user checks back to read our site over five times a day with some users coming back 10+ times a day. That’s incredible.
I got an email the other day from a reader who wrote,
I’ve been coming to MMO for years, but lately you guys are posting like you are on speed. I was going to complain about all the posts, until I realized each of them were so compelling that I found myself being engaged and even commenting on many of them. So consider this praise. I love your site.
I get a dozen emails a day from readers, and I eventually reply to every single one of them, but I must admit – emails like that are my favorite.
An advertiser recently told me it was remarkable that we get as much traffic as we do with no real sponsor. I smiled and simply said “timely, opinionated, passionate content with a dash of personality, will do it all the time”. And for that I must turn to all of our incredible writers without whom this site would not have achieved the heights that it has.
Writers come and go on Metsmerized and it’s been that way from day one. But each one of them leave an indelible mark on our site that only adds to our character and feeds our diversity which our readers love the best about us.
I’m waiting to get back some more responses from a survey we are conducting, and I couldn’t help but cheat a little and look at some of the responses to our questionnaire. Longtime readers of MMO will know I always say this site is reader driven. It’s true. Just about every significant change or addition on this site, originated due to an email or comment from a reader. I always call MMO a community and a fan site, and not just a blog, and I mean it. In real communities all ideas are considered and that’s what we try to do here. We are over 11,000 different readers strong.
Before the month is out we will have the Live Scoreboard on the site and some new modifications will be added in the way we integrate with social media. MySpace, with whom we’ve had a longstanding relationship and mounted 20,000+ friends has been eased out a long time ago as newer mediums like Twitter and Facebook became preeminent. Look for us to implement some new ways to integrate everything and make your experience on MMO more interactive and enjoyable.
It isn’t easy maintaining a giant of a site out of pocket with no major sponsor, but I want to thank those of you who realize that and have chipped in to help keep us thriving and afloat.
I just thought I would reach out to you all – one on one – like this, and let you know how grateful I am for helping us to grow what was once a personal Mets blog, into this thriving Mets community and fansite it has become today.
Thanks to all of you for everything!
