A Message to the Readers of the OB Rag

Our old masthead.

As August winds down and we prepare for the Labor Day weekend coming up, the official end of Summer, we at the OB Rag wanted to share what’s going on here at your community website.

On Vacation 8/22 – 8/29

First of all, we’re going on vacation. Yea! We need a break too.

The OB Rag will not be publishing between Friday, August 22nd and Friday, August 29th. Therefore, any reports of meetings or events or reviews will have to wait for our return.

Time to Toot Our Horn

And as we take a break and perhaps reflect on what it all means, it’s time to toot our horn.

• The OB Rag is coming up on our 7th anniversary – this October.  It was October 2007 when we began publishing – during the midst of the huge 2007 wildfire –  and we’re still going.  This has been no simple feat. But we think we have made a positive impact in OB and within the larger City of San Diego with our brand our citizen journalism.

• The OB Rag has a facebook page and a tweeter account – and when Matt Wood, a recent addition to our current staff, took over our social media, our daily stats took a jump. Often, we have near or over 2,000 readers during the week. Usually we don’t post on weekends, but still we have 1200 to 1500 readers on Saturdays and Sundays.

• One of our proudest moments in the recent past was to create the San Diego Free Press – which today is our online media partner.  The Free Press has its own  facebook, tweeter account – and readers. And in terms of readership, the SDFP does very well on its own with a monthly average this year of nearly 65,000 readers. It peaked in May with 84,000. (Frank Gormlie and Patty Jones of the OB Rag remain members of the SDFP Editor’s Board.)

Sure, there’s been a few permutations, but we’re still publishing 5 days a week, Monday through Friday.  We are able to do this because of donations from supporters and advertisements from businesses.

• Currently, we have an average of between 1400 and 2,000 readers a day (“unique visitors”) which translates into an average monthly readership of 52,000.  We had nearly 58,000 this past July. Our monthly readership has been as high as over a 100,000 (during the Occupy Wall Street days in 2011) – and when the OB Rag had a larger staff – say in late 2011 or early 2012, we also had a higher readership.

• The OB Rag was deeply involved in the recent campaign to save the OB Community Plan. With several articles about the Plan or its issues  each week for months, the staff of the OB Rag joined members of the OB Planning Board, Plan Update committee, OB Town Council, and other groups in the efforts to circulate petitions and build attendance for the important meetings. The OB Rag was specifically cited by the “opposition” to the Plan and by Todd Gloria, the City Council President as sources of information.

• The OB Rag covers local town council and planning committee meetings and events. No other media source gives the uber local news reporting that the Rag does.

• News and developments within OB’s business districts are covered by the OB Rag. The comings and goings of the various merchants around Newport Avenue and Voltaire Street affect and reflect the rest of the community; the OB Rag keeps it straight.

• We publish educational series for our readers – such as the current “Who Rules San Diego” series, or like the series on the different OB Planning Districts.

• Writers from the OB Rag and San Diego Free Press won awards recently from the San Diego Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

• Finally, the Ocean Beach business community is warming up to the OB Rag.  We are beginning to run large advertisements from local merchants or restaurant bars now, as our online news and views platform is being accepted by more and more residents and business-owners.

Support the Businesses Who Support the OB Rag

And speaking of advertisements – we need to urge our readers, especially our local readers – to support those who support the OB Rag; the businesses and merchants who have ads on our sidebars. Click on their logos, check our their websites; go to their brick and mortar storefront – if they have one – or investigate their products and services – perhaps you can use them.

Please appreciate these folks – they enable us to publish the material you read.

Sometimes, there’s deals for our readers. The OB Noodle House Bar 1502 has a current offer – mention their ad on the OB Rag and you’re get a buck off a beer.

Join Our Monthly Donors

We now have a bunch of readers who automatically send us a few dollars every month.  So, why not join our OB Rag Friends of the Month Club and contribute anywhere from $5 to $20 a month to keep our bills being paid. (Click on the “Donate” button at the right hand top of our homepage.)

T-Shirts and Old OB Rags

Finally, we still a number of OB Rag T-shirts for donations (limited sizes) plus old issues of the original OB Rags to give away for donations.

Always Looking for Talent or …?

We at the OB Rag are always looking for writers, bloggers, or photographers, or poets, who wish to contribute to the functioning and role that our website plays in the Village of OB and its surrounding neighborhoods. Email us at obragblog@gmail.com with samples of  your talent. Let our readers read your reviews, critiques, observations or analyses, or your photos or poems.

It’s simple: if you read this blog, this website either daily, weekly or occasionally, and would like to see it continue, figure out a way you can help us keep it going.