Shacknews LoL

[deleted]

It's time for me to post a long overdue livejournal-style post on Cortex.<br /> <br />Read more: <a href="https://www.shacknews.com/cortex/article/471/2020-almost-broke-me" target="_blank">2020 almost broke me</a>

Today marks four years since I became CEO of Shacknews. Each year I like to look back at how we are doing and highlight areas where we clearly differentiated our company from the increasingly competitive games media landscape.

Millions of people have visited Shacknews.com this year. Year-to-date, our monthly unique visitors are up 55% compared to the same time period last year. We set all-time monthly unique visitor records all summer, and are poised for our best Holiday season ever.

YTD pageviews are up 59% year-over-year, while Chatty pageviews declined 17.66% in the same time period. Chatty is still the most viewed page on Shacknews.com at the time of this thread, but we have many guides with a ridiculous amount of views this year.

Our most viewed article of 2018 so far is:

Cooking Ingredients and Recipes in Pokemon Quest
https://www.shacknews.com/article/105180/cooking-ingredients-and-recipes-in-pokemon-quest

We introduced Shacknews Electronic Sports to the world at E3 2018 with our first ever Shacknews World Championship. We conducted developer interviews on live stream stages at PAX East and E3. We also held our first annual The Great Quakeholio Tournament at QuakeCon 2018. Our presence at live events will be expanded next year.

From a content standpoint, we have reviewed more games this year than in 2017 and we are producing some of the most spectacular content I have seen since I bought the site. Beneath a Starless Sky is David's latest masterpiece and Greg deserves high praise for his work bringing 24 'Til Launch to life. We have also been streaming with regularity on our Twitch channel. Shacknews has been on the front page of Twitch several times this year and shout out to Chris and Charles for their contributions to our channel.

I have previously described myself as the Inexplicable CEO of Shacknews, but I think after four years in my role here makes more sense. I am keeping Shacknews alive financially every month because that is what I want to do. When I bought this place, it was not built to be self-sustaining anymore. A huge challenge for all websites today is the shift away from display ads to other forms of revenue generation. As our site has hit major unique visitor milestones for our company, my focus shifts to growing our revenues in the next year. I am still acting as editor-in-chief, but I feel that the team I have assembled understands what I expect to the point that I can wear my CEO hat more often than not.

The redesign we pushed in August provided huge functional updates to the front page, and we are currently working on our next development phase. My top priority at this moment is to launch Mercury with a better value proposition for our readers. I have truly pressed the reset button with respects to revenue in the last few quarters, and I look forward to growing our company through a new and easy to use subscription-based model.

Once Mercury has launched, I will turn to the last phase of this current redesign that has been labeled Teal Shack. I will provide Shackers a way to express themselves like never before. I have been deeply involved on all design aspects of the redesign, and this last phase will be one of the biggest things to ever happen to Shacknews. We are still working on some of the bugs we created, and I can't wait to share more with you folks.

Shacknews celebrates its twenty-second year this year. We have set traffic records, but more importantly we have found our voice in the games media. We are going to do cool shit. Period. I have a vision for where we are going, and I am determined to get us there. I want to thank everyone of my Shacknews staffers for being an amazing team. Thanks to everyone here on the Chatty (even you filthy lurkers) for your support. This place needed a Briefcase Man, and I am happy to do it for Shacknews.

https://twitter.com/technosucks/status/1014601365623099397?s=21

Business should have no equvocation with personal lives.

HAPPY 9TH BIRTHDAY SHACK[LOL]

I honestly can't believe it's been nine years. Holy shit. Time flies, etc.

Here's the annual breakdown --

YEAR       LOL         ALL       TAG GROWTH 

===========================================

2007 |    87,272  |    n/a     |           

2008 |   173,173  |   182,104  |   94,832   

2009 |   153,539  |   178,536  |   -3,568  

2010 |   162,412  |   216,850  |   38,314  

2011 |   158,869  |   235,565  |   18,715  

2012 |   236,047  |   365,840  |  130,275  

2013 |   332,429  |   523,610  |  157,770  

2014 |   347,735  |   557,375  |   33,765  

2015 |   386,044  |   617,217  |   59,842  

===========================================

       2,037,520  | 2,964,369 TOTAL TAGS

We had almost double the tags over last year. Crazy.

I'm going to probably have to do something to help the poor database -- it's starting to get too big for its britches. :D

My parents found him. Someone called because of one of the posters we put up.

I'm so happy right now. Will update later.

Did I ever tell you guys how much I love video games? When I am having a bad day (which seems like most days) and I feel like taking my car and driving off a cliff I just think of all the video games I have played, want to play and are going to play and it makes everything feel alright.

Video games saved my life, true story Bro, I owe them my life, without them I’d be dead by now.

So if any one feels like they are in the shit just go play a video game old school or new school, savoir it for what it is a place where everything is all right. Don’t hate on its imperfections enjoy it for what it is and the time you spend with it for it may be your last.

That is all, thank god it is the weekend tomorrow, don’t let the worlds negativity consume you into a deep barren black hole, video games will be there to save you.

For all of you; if you feel depression like this please talk to someone. I know that this is much easier said than done, but it can be done. I spent the last decade of my life dealing with depression and now I'm finally seeing someone about it and, while everything isn't perfect, it's getting better.

As silly as it may sound, you all are like a second family to me. Even if you're not somebody I talk to on Facebook, or play online with all the time, you all are the people I've been interacting with for over a decade of my life and I don't want to lose another one of you. Too many people on this site have ended out like this over the past several years, I don't want to see another one.

I know I'm not the only one who sees the Shack like a second family; let's start treating each other like it. Like any family, we all bicker sometimes, but at the end of the day I know that we are all there for each other. If you are even having thoughts of hurting yourself, know that there are hundreds of people here that genuinely love you and care for you and don't be afraid to reach out. I'm so sorry we lost another one of our own, but I hope this can be the last one.

[deleted]

Greetings Shackers,

I just wanted to thank everyone for sticking with us here at Shacknews. This year was full of a number of challenges for our company and we are happy to report 8 consecutive months of year over year monthly unique visitor growth on the site. The team takes great pride in the fact that more people are visiting Shacknews.com today than when we acquired the website in late 2013. We are also seeing continued traction on both of our Gamerhub and Shacknews YouTube channels. We launched Mercury Beta in August and plan on pushing forward some meaningful updates to our subscription service in the new year. We even acquired another website which we will relaunch next year. Team Shacknews raised $44,606 for Extra Life this year with our Twitch Marathon and we have had some amazing grassroots fundraising campaigns in the Chatty to help shackers in need. Shacknews is truly an amazing community of cock and I speak for the whole staff when I thank you shackers for your support.

Next year is the 20th anniversary of Shacknews, and we have some amazing things planned to celebrate.

Thank you and have a safe and Happy New Year,

Asif

the man with the briefcase