Can you believe it? Five years ago today I started the Orange Juice blog. It used to be just me, ranting from the right, back when I was a Republican – and a conservative one at that. A couple years later I recruited my Democratic friend Claudio Gallegos and for about a year he blogged from the left and I blogged from the right. And then we started inviting other bloggers.
Today we have twelve writers from all over the political spectrum, including: Vern Nelson, who was the California Democratic Party Volunteer of the Year in this area; the amazing Sarah M. Spinosa, who redesigned our blog and helped us double our readership; Thomas Gordon, who is running for Mayor of Santa Ana in November and who won a seat on the OC GOP Central Committee this year; Larry Gilbert, who drives the hacks on the Mission Viejo City Council nuts; Ron & Anna Winship, our dynamic Newport Beach Republican duo; and new bloggers Ron St. John, an accomplished attorney who ran for against Dana Rohrabacher in the 46th Congressional District this year; and Carl Overmeyer, the head of the NRA of Orange County. Thanks to each of them and all our other writers as well – we wouldn’t be the Orange Juice without them.
It is fitting that on the day of our five year anniversary I was quoted in both the L.A. Times and the O.C. Register, after we broke the news that Carlos Bustamante’s appointment to the State Fair Employment and Housing Commission was in trouble. The L.A. Times corroborated that story a little while later as they verified that Bustamante had indeed resigned from both of his state commission appointments.
Last week was also a big week for the Orange Juice as we eclipsed 400,000 hits and we finally beat the Red County Blog, according to Alexa.com, the preeminent worldwide web ranking service:
Isn’t that amazing? We came in last week at 165,797 while Red County came in at 326,026 – we beat them by 50%! When you consider that Red County is made up of 13 separate blogs it really is astounding that we were able to out-rank them. Bear in mind the fact that Alexa does not play games with their rankings. They base their rankings on hard data. And take a look at the 3 month change column…our growth in the past quarter has simply been incredible.
Not bad for the motley crew here at the Orange Juice! We all work very hard to bring you, our readers, the most interesting political commentary and news. But we wouldn’t be here without YOU the readers – so on behalf of the entire Orange Juice blog team THANK YOU for making us such a great success in the blogosphere! We will do our best to keep up our end of the bargain.
Congratulations! You’ve been successful because you work like dogs and offer a rare commodity: truth.
Yeah, but this site may be the cause of some unrecognized trouble, Art. Wednesday afternoon I walked up Broadway looking for “The Crosby”; I’d never seen it. The ‘400’ was plain as day, but no Crosby sign. I walked in to inquire, and was told they were waiting for a permit from the city. They didn’t know about about any Screwdriver meetings. I told ’em perhaps the city council discovered that their establishment was the secret meeting place of the OJB cabal … could explain the no Crosby sign.
Congratulations on your five year anniversary, Art.
It’s too bad you can’t simply celebrate it and thank your contributors – especially SMS, who transformed your almost unusable blog into something much, much better — without delving into this obsession you seem to have with Red County.
It’s clear from your SiteMeter stats that OJ has experienced its first real traffic growth in a long time, and during the summer doldrums no less. My thought is that’s due too SMS’s re-design and content that’s more informative and less over the top slash-and-burn.
I’d caution about relying on Alexa. The techies don’t put much faith in its ranking system, for reasons you can find out pretty easily by Googling around.
Thanks for the five years Art, I just picked up on the last few months and I’m hooked. I love the amount of activity and interactivity here.
This blog is great! Congratulations to the Orange Juice Team.
#2 –
I thought the lack of signage at The Crosby was a little weird as well. I couldn’t even find the place and it was my event! They didn’t know who we were because only the management had been notified about our group.
Matt –
Again, thank you. I put my heart and soul into this blog.
… and I’m for hire! Can anyone out there help a starving writer/programmer/jill-of-all-trades and contract me to build them a blog (or MySpace or something)? I live a fairly minimalist lifestyle so my prices are reasonable. That’s purplepagansarah@yahoo.com. Gratuitous plug, yes, but hopefully effective! 😛
SMS
Matt/Jubal,
Sarah IS the bomb – no argument there! If anyone out there wants to start a blog or a website or is having trouble with their existing blog, they should contact her.
I have noticed however that since our redesign our #1 referral source is google.com. Our old blog barely picked up any hits from google.com. I think that Sarah and WordPress deserve the credit for that. It has made a huge difference.
Secondly, a lot of folks are referring readers to us. One of them in particular has done an awesome job sending readers to us who work for the SAUSD. We cover that school district better than any of the local newspapers and provide a forum for folks who are angry at the corrupt SAUSD administrators.
Another factor is the growth in our blog team. While other blogs in town are losing bloggers we have added several new ones who have their own followings. Vern Nelson, Carl Overmeyer and Ron St. John come to mind. Vern in particular has brought us a ton of new readers. Why Liberal OC never picked him up is beyond me. We are lucky to have him. And Carl also has a vast following due to his work in the NRA and in the community.
I really have not changed my style much at all. The heart of my writing is that I don’t trust politicians and I don’t give them respect they don’t deserve. I love to poke at the bad ones and there is NO shortage of that in Orange County. Just look at the pictures I use…many which I have to create using a Photoshop knock-off.
And since I went DTS, our readers have not been able to hold my party registration against me, although they find plenty other reasons to go after me, which is fine. I am used to that.
I think that the biggest reason for our success is that this blog is not a partisan blog. There are many stories that the local red and blue blogs are not allowed to touch. We don’t worry about that. It is a pretty wild mix but it makes for great conversation. Even my own team members regularly disagree with each other! I have never seen another blog like this one. Usually blogs are either red or blue, period. Readers obviously appear to enjoy the way we mix it up.
Lastly, you were the one that turned me on to Alexa in the first place, in case you forgot! Whatever their shortcomings may be, numbers don’t lie. I am in awe that we finally outpaced your blog. Will we keep it up? Who knows? As you know maintaining a blog is a LOT of work!
Thanks for the kudos…
I’m sure those are all factors, Art, although it was Google Analytics and Web Stat that I pointed you towards. I’ve never trusted Alexa’s reliability – last year, for example, it ranked You Tube as getting way more traffic than Google.
In any case, congrats again.
Yep, you were quoted in The Register as saying that if nobody challenges Carlos this fall that you “suppose” you will.
Well? Nobody has challenged him. When are you going to file? Time is running out!
#1, are you mentally handicapped? The truth? The only reason they are successful is that they offer gossip – like the National Enquirer. People read because they want to see the outlandish things that are printed. There is no truth in this blog.
Congrats! I’ve only now found the site and so I’ve got a lot of reading to do 😉
Tardo.
If there is no truth in this blog, can you please tell us, with numerous other “free” blog sites available, that you take the time to read and comment on our “untrue” posts? Just curious.
#10,
Tell that to the L.A. Times and the Register. I was the first one their reporters called AFTER we broke the story about the pending downfall of Carlos Bustamante.
The fact is the red and blue blogs in town present doctored spin while we tell it like it is. There IS a difference!