Sentinel.com blog

Here’s a look at the Sentinel’s growth in daily unique visitors per month since 2008.

Santa Cruz Police keep a list of houses in the city that have been cited for loud and unruly instances in the past year. They update the list every two weeks. If you’re searching for a place to live (or a great party), it’s nice to know where the noise is coming from.

Our database with the SCPD’s loud and unruly addresses was down since February, but back up in time for those lining up a place to live in the fall. We’ve also added a handy map:

View Cited for loud and unruly in Santa Cruz in a larger map

We’ve heard from plenty of readers that they were interested in an iPad/iPhone app for the Sentinel and we’re working on various possibilities locally. (Want to help? let us know.) And at the same time, there are a variety of corporate strategies in the works for tablet users.

The coolest out there, and the biggest jump forward in technology is a product called TapIn Bay Area, which was launched this week.

You’ll see more of TapIn on our site, but it’s optimized for the touch screen. It’s hyperlocal and regional at the same time. It integrates news, advertising, deals, events, a business directory and user content, and is easily navigatable and searchable and gamified.

Here are a few links to reviews of the new app. Free trials here. (It will cost $4.99/month in the future).

• Ken Doctor: MediaNews’ new TapIn bets on the tablet
• From Poynter: How TapIn plans to master location-based news for the iPad
• From Street Fight: Local news + Google Maps + Social Media = TapIn

You’ll find Sentinel written stories and events from our online calendar all over the Santa Cruz map, but most of the links will send you to the Mercury News version of our content. (We’ll see if we can fix that).

We’ve added a couple small changes to article pages in the past week.

One is a “report an error” button (above). We offer all kinds of ways to share a story, to comment on a story, to e-mail a reporter, to print it, to change the font size. We figured we should offer a clear path to making a correction. We correct articles online as soon as possible and in print the next day.

We’ve also added the Google +1 button to the Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In lineup for sharing articles across the top of page.

Multimedia

After a three-day weekend, check out great shots from 4th of July yesterday in Shmuel Thaler’s slide show online.

I attended the Wilder Ranch Old Fashioned Fourth of July celebration and put together a short video.

Check out the Sentinel Photo Blog for shots of the beach cleanup today.

On Tuesday, when traffic was snarled for hours on Highway 1 after a wreck near Rio del Mar, our site received more than 166,000 page views, one of the top 20 traffic days on the site. Of those, more than 11,000 were on mobile devices, one of our biggest days ever on mobile. We suspect a few people parked in traffic found our site while they waited.

For the month of June, we had more than 235,000 page views on mobile devices and we’ve had more than 1.3 million mobile views in 2011. For the year, we should just about double our mobile views from 2010 (1,586,219).

We expect mobile to grow at that pace or more as people adopt smartphones and we continue to provide real-time updates as news breaks.

Here’s a look at our mobile traffic since January of 2010 (page views):

2010:
Jan.: 95,016
Feb.: 84,139
March: 98,733
April: 120,291
May: 141,245
Jun: 133,360
July: 136,620
Aug: 140,724
Sept.:140,916
Oct.: 163,248
Nov.: 171,638
Dec.: 160,289

2010:
Jan.: 191,391
Feb.: 174,728
March.: 245,575
April: 217,856
May: 226,191
June: 237,944

Overall for the month of June, mobile is still a small percentage of our 3,301,320 page views. Our monthly unique viewers were up to 472,133, as compared to 369,495 in 2010. Here’s a look at the most-viewed pages the past month:

	Page		Page Views
1.	Home		741,196	22.5%
2.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com		108,931	3.3%
3.	Other		91,842	2.8%
4.	http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/doubleclick/DARTIframe.html		84,024	2.5%
5.	Sentinel Forum		52,519	1.6%
6.	santacruzsentinelcom – Search Results – News / PG: 1		47,460	1.4%
7.	Local News		41,836	1.3%
8.	Obituaries		38,067	1.2%
9.	http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary.aspx		32,290	1.0%
10.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Boys and Girls of Summer		23,786	0.7%
11.	http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel		22,164	0.7%
12.	http://events.santacruzsentinel.com/search		21,613	0.7%
13.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Congradulations		17,879	0.5%
14.	Home / Real Estate transactions database		17,589	0.5%
15.	http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/santacruzsentinel/guestbook.aspx		15,646	0.5%
16.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com : Local News		14,928	0.5%
17.	Sports		13,062	0.4%
18.	Home / Body found near UCSC campus likely victim of hit and run		12,782	0.4%
19.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2008 Halloween Costume		10,432	0.3%
20.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com : Cops and Courts		9,864	0.3%
21.	Weather		9,838	0.3%
22.	Home / Helicopters fly crash victims from Highway 1 in Aptos		9,834	0.3%
23.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2008 Best Tattoo		9,724	0.3%
24.	Home / Police shoot and kill 22-year-old Watsonville man inside sporting goods store		9,652	0.3%
25.	Home / Woman ditches her bikini on Highway 17 as CHP officer tries to arrest her for flashing passin		9,548	0.3%
26.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Board Art		8,709	0.3%
27.	http://www.uclick.com/client/scs/gpd		8,312	0.3%
28.	Letters		7,641	0.2%
29.	Home / A Nightmare for neighbors		7,474	0.2%
30.	Home / Santa Cruz fatal hit-and-run defendant pleads not guilty		6,683	0.2%
31.	Home / Arrest details emerge in case of bicyclist killed on Empire Grade Road		6,421	0.2%
32.	Home / Man who died trying to cross Highway 1 identified		6,199	0.2%
33.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 O Canada		6,192	0.2%
34.	http://www.uclick.com/client/scs/cpa		5,749	0.2%
35.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2009 Retro 70′s		5,625	0.2%
36.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2010 Thanks Giving		5,617	0.2%
37.	Horoscopes		5,572	0.2%
38.	Home / Bicyclist dies on Soquel-San Jose Road		5,541	0.2%
39.	Local News / Body found near UCSC campus likely victim of hit and run		5,269	0.2%
40.	http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary-browse.aspx		5,268	0.2%
41.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Spring Has Sprung		5,209	0.2%
42.	http://santacruzsentinel.kaango.com/browse/real-estate-rental-sale/775		5,107	0.2%
43.	Home / Eye of the storm: Man seeks owner of camera that was lost at sea in 2007		5,051	0.2%
44.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Watch the Birdie		4,977	0.2%
45.	Home / Dominican Hospital fined $50,000 for patient death		4,939	0.1%
46.	RSS / Body found near UCSC campus likely victim of hit and run		4,926	0.1%
47.	Home / CHP: Car in fatal hit-and-run found		4,843	0.1%
48.	Opinion		4,705	0.1%
49.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2010 Almost Famous		4,695	0.1%
50.	Home / CHP interviews driver in Monday’s fatal bicycle crash in Soquel		4,656	0.1%
	Total		3,301,320