EastCountyToday Celebrates Three Years Since Website Launch

Happy Birthday to us! In July of 2012, there was this crazy idea to launch a news website with a simple goal of providing local news better than anyone else. Today, EastCountyToday celebrates our third anniversary.

Let me just say, I can’t believe it’s been three years. Thank you for making us the leading news source in East Contra Costa County!

What started out as a concept has now evolved with our readership and their demands in seeking quality content and photographs. It’s been an interesting three years with many highs, lows, and even sometimes mistakes—believe it or not, we appreciate our volunteer editors on social media.

I will admit, it has not been easy as this is a 24/7 job covering police and fire activity while competing with larger publications with an actual staff. Many people do not know this, but for quite some time, this was a one-man show with no income during the first 9-months of operations—thank you Black Bear Diner for being our first advertiser and those who have since followed.

EastCountyToday would not be possible without our readers and those who participate by providing tips, photographs and responding on social media whether it be good, bad or negative I would like to think the community is more aware than ever of what is occurring in the community.

In three years, we have seen steady growth from the more than 2 million visitors in 2013. In 2014, more than 4 million people visited our website, and in 2015, we are on pace to surpass last year’s numbers. Our Facebook Page has increased to 43,000 people while Instagram and Twitter continues to grow—we are now even trying Periscope.

Equally important as our audience, we would not be able to provide this type of service without our advertisers who believe in us. Without them understanding sometimes we post controversial material, it would be a hobby website updated once a week instead of a full-time news service.

I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support, it means the world to me that you visit the site, engage with the site, and support the site—thank you to everyone who was kind enough to send us a donation in the form of a “voluntary subscription” over the course of the last three years.

The list is long, but a few people I have to thank are Old River Media Group who assisted in all the back-end tech stuff and works to keeps the site online. I also want to thank AM Productions who is my right hand man in covering local police and fire activity.

There are countless others I wish to thank but would be impossible to name everyone for their encouragement, discussions, advice, and for stopping me in my tracks for doing something really stupid.

The Future
As we move forward, we will be making some tweaks to our website and services to further promote local business and the mentality of supporting people locally. We have launched a business directory recently and we are rolling out a coupons program as of today.

More exciting, by the end of the year, if finances allow it, we hope to hire 2-3 writers and begin building a team for the first time ever which will equate to better content and even faster news.

Of course, anyone is more than welcome to write a weekly column as Kristy Keusch does on animal topics. If interested in a column, email us.

One thing we will be doing in year three and going forward is finding ways to give back to the community and those in need. It’s important to find ways to give back when we can and find the right causes.

Voluntary Subscription
EastCountyToday will ALWAYS be a free service, however, we do accept donations in the form of voluntary subscriptions which helps with operational costs such as website maintenance, server space, gas to incidents and other costs of doing business.

For those who appreciate our content and want to see us grow larger, perhaps you would consider a small donation to keep the site active and in the future expand our services offered. Click here to donate

Again… Thank You!
In closing, I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped EastCountyToday become what it is. Thank you for the emails, tips, photographs article shares, likes, and comments. I firmly believe that we are the community news people want to read about because of the engagement of everyone.

Because of all of you, EastCountyToday has grown from a hobby to a full blown news service and I will always be grateful to our readers who both support us and keep us honest.

Thank you,

Michael Burkholder
Owner and Publisher

To contact me, email [email protected]