At long last, ARLnow is getting a sister site in Alexandria.
ALXnow — feel free to call it “Alexandria Now” — will launch on Tuesday, Oct. 1, after six years of *almost* deciding to launch in the city to Arlington’s south. (Check out the “joined” date on the @AlexandriaNow Twitter account.)
ARLnow.com has set a new 30-day readership record.
From June 25-July 24, more than 400,000 unique users visited the local news site, viewing 1.41 million pages, according to Google Analytics. The average unique user, as measured by Google Analytics, read 3.5 pages during the month, though those returning 15 or more times throughout the month accounted for more than half of ARLnow’s pageviews.
But in response to reader feedback we’re seeking to broaden our coverage, and thus need some outside help, particularly with feature articles that explore local topics in-depth but are not the kind of topical, of-the-moment news that our staff usually covers.
If you’re a local freelancer who knows Arlington well, we’d like to hear from you. Please fill out the form below and we may get in touch. (We also are looking for freelancers to help out with sponsored articles.)
Hurricane Prompts Influx of Shelter Dogs from N.C. — “Dogs, cats and kittens were all transported from shelters ahead of the now Category 2 Hurricane Florence. They arrived… in Arlington Wednesday. Six dogs and two cats arrived from Hertford County, NC. Two dogs were adopted on-site. A total of 38 dogs and seven cats arrived from Florence County, SC. In total, 53 animals are now safe and sound in the D.C. area.” [WUSA 9]
PAC Raising Money for Female Candidates — Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol is among those expected to attend a “kick-off fundraiser” tonight for Brass Ovaries PAC, which raises money for first-time, female candidates for public office. [Tysons Reporter]
The team behind ARLnow has a mission: to make local news more interesting, engaging and actionable for a new generation of digital-first news consumers in Arlington and in other dynamic, live-work communities.
In support of that mission, we’ve been getting ready to launch a new site for Tysons, McLean and Vienna later this month. But we’ve had a major setback and need to ask for your help to overcome it.
Starting in early 2018, ARLnow plans to create a new position of Morning Editor and Enterprise Reporter. The individual hired for this position will be responsible for executing key editorial strategies around email and memberships for our growing operation.
The job duties include:
TechShop Expected to Reopen — Crystal City’s TechShop location, closed last month as a result of the company’s bankruptcy, is expected to reopen under new ownership. [Washington Business Journal]
RIP Bill Bozman — “He was ‘one of the community’s greats,’ in the words of former state Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, and while the death of William Bozman was not unexpected, it still created a ripple of emotional outpouring from several generations of Arlington civic leaders who had relied on him for counsel and good humor.” [InsideNova]
ARLnow is rolling out breaking new alerts for our email subscribers.
In this era of social media noise, sometimes it’s hard for important local stories to break through right away. So we’re giving readers an option to make sure breaking stories land in their email inbox ASAP.
Metro to Raise Fares, Reduce Service — In order to plug a budget gap, Metro will be raising rail and bus fares and cutting service starting in July. [WTOP, NBC Washington]
Pupatella Expanding to Richmond — Beloved Bluemont pizzeria Pupatella is expanding via franchising. One of the first places getting new Pupatellas: Richmond, where a local franchisee is opening four new locations. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]
Icy Saturday Morning — Several crashes were reported around Arlington Saturday as freezing rain turned roads and sidewalks into sheets of ice. The slippery conditions lasted for most of the morning, before a warm-up started melting the ice around lunchtime. [Storify]
Wreaths Laid at ANC — Despite the icy weather, tens of thousands of volunteers helped to lay 245,000 wreaths on grave sites at Arlington National Cemetery Saturday morning. Arlington County Police assisted with crowd control for the annual Christmastime event. [WTOP, The Blaze, Twitter]
No need to protest outside of our office, it’s not our fault, but ARLnow.com’s comment system is down.
Disqus, the our third-party comment system provider, is among the companies affected by a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack today, which is mostly affecting internet users on the East Coast.
In June, ARLnow.com was read by about 350,000 unique visitors who accounted for 1.43 million pageviews, a new record for the site.
Across our network of four sites — ARLnow.com, Reston Now, Hill Now and Borderstan — we saw a record 527,000 unique visitors and 1.92 million pageviews. In all, our sites have 94,953 subscribers/followers across email, Twitter and Facebook.
