SMS Text News hits the 250,000 reader mark

That’s us on 250,000 readers a month, or thereabouts.

We’re averaging at least 150,000 unique hosts, 320,000 visits and almost 1.5m page impressions each month. How do I get to 250,000 readers? Well, it’s a bit made up. It’s guesswork.

A real issue for me are the countless databases and intranets that re-purpose the SMS Text News feed. I’ve no problem with this (apart from the annoying sites that take our content and pretend it’s their own) — the feed is full and freely available to use — the real problem is trying to count just who’s reading.

Many companies, for example, rip the feed once internally (that shows, to me, as one viewer) and then splice it out to hundreds of employees (or, in one case I know of, a few thousand). That’s great! It’s just counting that’s an arse.

The way I manage this is to do an approximation. Double it. Or double-and-a-half. Something like that.

So if you’re splitting hairs, we’ve got 150,000 unique visitors to the site. That is something that I’m thoroughly delighted with. Way back in 1999 with a $1m investment, we managed to get around 150,000 unique visitors per month for our independent entertainment site! Anyway, if you’re comfortable recognising that our feed is being repurposed all across the web, then join me in the 250,000 readers club.

Thank you all for reading. I most sincerely appreciate your attention. I am working hard to try and respond to your email in a timely manner. This isn’t quite happening, so, if like Chris from the LG Blog last week, you need to get hold of me, don’t hesitate to do it real time by ewanmacleod@gmail.com, ewansms@googlemail.com (on Google Talk) or ewanjmacleod on Skype.

Thank you to the team of contributors (regular and occasional) — I thoroughly enjoy your input. In no particularly order, I’m sure you’re valuing Julia’s three mobile industry stories every morning, Whatley’s weekly mobile viewpoint, Jonathan Jensen’s regular perspective, Mr BlykWatch (Ricky), Ben Smith’s in-depth views and our Youth Correspondent, Issah. And of course operations manager, Krystal. Whom, if you can’t get me, is far more organised and contactable on krystal@smstextnews.com.

And finally, as you know, SMS Text News is part funded by me and part advertiser funded. For, almost a year Clickatell have been a brilliant supporter. Thank you first to Clickatell’s Stefano Sessa (now working at Modu) for taking the time to identify SMS as a good source of mobile industry developers and executives and more recently to Clickatell’s Storm Buckingham and the rest of the Clickatell team. I very much appreciate their support.

Thank you to Patrick Smith and Martin Smith (they’re not brothers!) at telecoms PR behemoth Sonus / Frith PR for their support for numerous Unlimited Drinks events.

In recent weeks, Clickatell has been joined by Esendex (look right, you’ll see their ad for the Esendex Developer Competition). Thank you to MD Adam Bird and Marketing Manager, Ann Wilkinson.

If you’ve got an opportunity to do business with Clickatell, Sonus PR or Esendex, please do view them positively and invite them to the pitch. If you’d like a direct intro, please email me and I’ll sort it out.