ChiswickW4.com Membership Reaches 20,000

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'Most popular' local community web site in the U.K. keeps growing

ChiswickW4.com is pleased to announce that total site membership now exceeds 20,000. It is believed to be the first time any local community web site in the UK has reached this level which would make it the most popular of its kind in the country.

This milestone has been passed just a few months after the site's newsletter distribution reached over 15,000. The site's membership is higher because it includes those that have registered but opted not to take the newsletter.

If you haven't already become a member of the site you can sign up here.

The site is now the leading provider of local news for Chiswick. So far in July over 80% of items in a Google News search for Chiswick were from ChiswickW4.com.

Mary Macleod, the MP for Brentford and Isleworth said, “ChiswickW4.com is an outstanding resource that helps keep all of us who call Chiswick home up to date with local events and news. ChiswickW4.com has proven to be a great means by which Chiswick residents can connect with one another and make plans to help our community grow even stronger. I congratulate the website for reaching 20,000 members and I strongly encourage anyone who has not already subscribed to do so immediately.”

Pauline Hart of Pensioners Alone At Christmas; “I love the website and I wouldn’t go a week without looking at it. I like the fact that it tells me what’s going on in my local area. The television tells me what’s going on in the world but I do like to know what’s happening in my home area.

"It also gives people information that is very useful, for example we’ve had people volunteer for Pensioners Alone At Christmas because they read about it on the website, so it’s a wonderful way of the community making use of what’s published on ChiswickW4.com .”

Andy Allsopp, Head of Corporate Communications said, “The success of ChiswickW4.com proves that web-based local news, information and conversation is here to stay. W4’s brand – in the community, by the community and for the community – is clearly very attractive and I am sure it will not be too long before 30,000 members are announced. Well done to the team.”

Local Councillor for the Chiswick Homefield ward John Todd said, "In my view ChiswickW4.com is a key contributor to effective community communication in Chiswick."

The site currently receives about 170,000 visits and 2 million page views each month. The biggest driver of traffic to the site is the newsletter with Sunday and Monday nearly always the busiest days of the week. The site publishes over 100 items on local news and events a month. As well as news content the site has the most comprehensive business directory for the area with over 1,000 local listings, a busy forum that receives over 100 postings every day, a comprehensive listing of Chiswick property for sale and to let, a popular classifieds section and a jobs page that is currently receiving over 6,000 views a month.

There are around 18,000 households in Chiswick and detailed analysis of the registered user database suggest that at least 50% of homes in W4 are registered on the site.

The database is regularly cleaned of defunct e-mails and membership is automatically closed after three failed messages.

There are 37,200 members of one or more Neighbour Net sites currently making the group the largest network of local sites in the UK by this measure.

ChiswickW4.com Newsletter Subscribers
Resident in W4	71%
Resident in W4 or an adjacent post code	88%
ChiswickW4.com Registered Members
Resident in W4	66%
Resident in W4 or an adjacent post code	83%
Age 50+	19%
40-49	20%
30-39	40%
20-29	21%
Below 20	1%

Source: Neighbour Net. Demographic information based on sampling

 

July 27, 2012