|
About A.M. Costa Rica |
Place your classified ad
|
|||||||
| Home | Calendar | Place
a classified ad |
Classifieds | Real estate | Food | Sports | ||
|
|
||||||||
| A report to readers and advertisers Readership increases during March and suggests greater world interest here |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
(Published April 2, 2008)
Readership for this newspaper continues to grow, and statistics suggest
that persons in other countries continue to have interest in Costa Rica
as a vacation and retirement destination.According to statistics from the newspaper's server, there were a record number of unique readers, 58,318, during March. Unique readers are those that are counted just once each day. In April 2007, the next highest month, there were 58,049. The 4.5 million hits in March were a record, too. Hits were 4.6 percent higher than February and 21 percent higher than March 2007 when there were 3.8 million hits. A hit is when the server sends out a Web page, a photo or some other type of file. The upturn is good news because readership has been relatively flat over the last year, perhaps due to economic problems in the United States. More than 60 percent of the this newspaper's readership is outside Costa Rica. The newspaper has shown a 34.7 increase in readers in the last three years and a 201.3 percent increase in the numbers of pages reader by visitors each day, according to the March statistics. Newspaper statistics are available HERE! The increases come at a time when readership of printed newspapers is declining. Some analysts are even talking about the disappearance of printed products in the next 20 years. In part, this is due to the skyrocketing cost of printing and distribution and younger readers who have interests in computers. |
Internet publications have hardly any distribution costs. There is no delay in publishing on the Internet, which is why A.M. Costa Rica can be in 90 countries every morning at 2 a.m. In fact, the newspaper staff has noted a small pocket of readers in Kabul and in Baghdad. These are likely servicemen and women with the armed forces there or diplomatic or international agency personnel. Another advantage is that Internet publications usually do not spent extra money for color or movement on the pages. There also is instant response via Web page and e-mail links. The statistics provided by the A.M. Costa Rica server are not under the control of the newspaper. Because the statistical program requesters hits, reader visits and page views, newspaper editors know exactly how many persons viewed a specific page or how many readers visited during a certain period. One problem with printed newspapers is that persons may buy or subscribe to a local paper but they often do not actually read it. Most printed newspapers are audited by independent agencies to establish accurate circulation figures. But there is no way to tell if subscribers actually are reading the pages. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||
|
||||
| A.M. Costa Rica turns 5 with thanks to readers | |
|
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff Five years ago today the first issue of A.M. Costa Rica appeared to nearly zero readers and with no advertisers. Now, five years later, the Internet daily is welcomed into thousands of homes each weekday morning, and advertisers have found that the newspaper is a key element in building their businesses. The daily was initially envisioned as a bulletin board for club meetings and local events. But Costa Rica is so interesting to the outside world and so full of news that the demand for more depth came quickly. Less that a month after the first edition, terrorists launched their attacks on the United States, and this daily news source was vital to alert readers to local activities and memorial services. Since then the newspaper has covered two presidential elections and hundreds of stories of good and bad news about expats. The Internet server contains nearly 1,400 pages, including every edition produced. Everything is online and searchable. The newspaper welcomes only advertisers who seem to promote the best interests of the readers. |
The newspaper still does not accept
personal ads, advertising for
online casinos or what maybe termed adult advertising. The company
refuses to be a stimulus for sex tourism. With age the newspaper grew: from two pages a day to four or five newspages today. There still is a long way to go to meet the individual needs of readers, and there are readers in about 80 countries. The overriding concern has been to protect expats and tourists. Many stories have alerted tourists to the scams and tricks criminals play to steal and rob. Many stories have described flaws in the nation's property registry system and how owners can protect holdings. Each day the e-mails bring questions and concerns from all over the world. Outside the newspages, editors try to answer these questions and provide references for professional services. Writers are not shy about taking a humorous and irreverent look at Costa Rican society, particularly politics. And if Costa Rica has anything, it has great material for humorists. Costa Rica will continue to evolve, and editors hope that A.M. Costa Rica will keep pace. They also know that the success, both professional and financial, has been because of the readers. |
| Newspaper continues its spectacular growth in 2006 | |||||||||||||||||
|
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
(Published Feb. 2, 2006)
This daily online
newspaper had another record month in January, and
statistics show that both hits and pages read increased more than 320
percent over January 2004.The increases come at a time when print-based newspapers are suffering readership declines all over the world. Total readers doubled in the two years from 51,351 to 119,746 in January 2006. That's a 133 percent increase. The statistics are provided by an independent computer program at the newspaper's server. The statistics show that readership in January exceeded both the December 2005 totals and the October 2005 totals. Both those months were records at the time. The dramatic readership increase can be attributed to a superior English-language news report and very effective display and classified advertising. Increases in readership of online newspapers is not unique to Costa Rica. The National Newspaper Association measured double-digit increases in a U.S. study released last year. A.M. Costa Rica statistics also show that readers stick |
with the newspaper. The average reader views 7.5 pages in each visit, the data said. The readership of A.M. Costa Rica is mostly an adult group, many seeking to move or retire to Costa Rica. The readership is upscale, too, because those who look at the newspaper know how to use a computer and usually own one. Only about 25 percent of Costa Rican homes have personal computers, but perhaps as many as 70 percent of the homes occupied by English-speaking expats have computer access. Advertiser reports also support the effectiveness of A.M. Costa Rica as a marketplace. Anecdotal reports say ads in this online newspaper outpull old time newsprint ads two and three to one. Advertisers also like the free color, movement and instant responses that online marketing provides. Advertisers also like the prices because an old-time paper newspaper can spend up to 70 percent of the cost of an advertisement just for newsprint. Plus they can't correct errors after the ink is applied. |
||||||||||||||||
|
A.M. Costa Rica, April 5, 2005
|
||||
|
By
Jay Brodell Sunday was the third birthday of A.M. Costa Rica, something that was as much a surprise to us as it is to others in the Costa Rican newspaper scene. As much as we would like to blow our horn, the success of this newspaper is strongly dependent on the readers and the advertisers. The readers have made us the best-read English language news source for Costa Rica, and the advertisers have paid to present their services or products to the readers and help us grow. There still are expats in Costa Rica who do not have a computer or who are not comfortable reading the news there. But these are in the minority and probably do not represent the progressive citizen who interests an advertiser. The newspaper was born less than three weeks before the terrible terrorist attacks on the United States. The tragedy and its fallout continue to reverberate here. It was clear from that day that Costa Rica needed a daily news source. Less than a year later investigators raided the offices of the Brothers Villalobos high-interest investment operation. The raid and subsequent closure of the firm caused lasting effects on the economy here. Not helping was the collapse of a handful of other similar firms. The series of episodes cost expats here hundreds of millions of dollars. We did our best to keep readers informed. Many became upset when we offered rewards for information leading to the capture of fugitive Luis Enrique Villalobos and Luis Milanes. We got death threats and a lot of angry e-mails and telephone calls. A lot of those callers probably realize now that they should have chipped in a few dollars to fatten the reward. Both men still are fugitives, as is the expatsÕ money. Although this is a Costa Rican corporation, one of our mandates is to help North Americans, expats and tourists alike. We have aggressively followed criminal cases in which North Americans were the victims or the accused. We also are publishing a series of articles that help expats understand the complex Costa Rican real estate and business scenes. When we started this enterprise we said we thought there was a lot of news of importance to expats that never got reported. We think that we have proved our point, and we will continue to do so. As we grow, we hope we do a better job. The main goal for the next three years is to establish A.M. Costa Rica as source that is the first choice of English-speaking readers and advertisers. ItÕs OK to speak Spanish and still read A.M. Costa Rica. Expats, be they monolingual or bilingual, have need of information that is different from native-born Costa Ricans. We intend to continue to fill that niche. We
reach a million hits on the Internet By the A.M. Costa Rica staff A.M. Costa Rica posted a record in March when the newspaperÕs Web pages received more than a million hits. The exact total was 1,051,118, according to an independent statistical at the newspaperÕs Maryland server site. The program also monitored 242,156 viewings of individual Web pages. For the month, there were 64,692 persons who spent significant time visiting two or more pages of the online newspaper. That, too, was a record. That total works out to about 3,200 persons who read each daily edition. The newspaper debuted Aug. 15, 2001. The previous record of Internet hits was in January 2003 when 908,726 hits were logged. The March total represents a 15.6 increase in readership. Actually, the newspaper probably received more than a million hits in January and February, too, but problems at the server, perhaps caused by several flurries of junk e-mail and viruses, put the statistical program out of operation for several days in each of the months. The dynamic increase in readership is good news for savvy business owners and readers who use A.M. Costa RicaÕs advertising services. The newspaper boasts of delivering advertising at the speed of light. But the advertising rates are based on a far lower readership, editors said. Full statistics are linked, as always, via a box on Page One to this location: Our Stats. A.M. Costa Rica after one year By
Jay Brodell
editor of A.M. Costa Rica (published Aug. 15, 2002) We were thrilled by the response from readers all over the world after we asked for birthday greetings. DonÕt forget to check out our birthday wishes. The newspaper's first birthday is a happy time for us. But it also is a time to consider where we have been and where we are going. We started the newspaper only a few weeks before terrorists attacked New York City and Washington. We believe those attacks quickly showed we were correct when we said that Costa Rica needs an English-language daily newspaper to help foster a sense of community among the foreign residents here. Since then we have imperfectly filled our mandate by providing professionally reported news of interest to our readers. We also discovered that we were correct when we said that a great deal of important news was not being provided. So did our meteoric growth in readership. Where would you have heard of Roger Crouse, the Canadian from Playas del Coco in jail for a year for basically exercising his right to self defense? Where would you read of the continuing threats to tourists as they walk through downtown San José. Where would you read Jo Stuart each week as she finds hidden relationships between seemingly unrelated situations? Where would you find our unique daily report of Latin American news. As Costa Rica continues to experience difficult economic times, we promise to work harder. We also promise to continue providing original reporting. A.M. Costa Rica news stories are not lifted out of the Spanish-language press. We have a lot of respect for San José newspeople, but not so much that we would publish their news stories. And we believe that taking stories without permission from another source is stealing. As it turns out, we work shoulder-to-shoulder each day with the Spanish-language reporters, and we consider them our competition. There is no reason that English speakers here should not have a news outlet as accurate and as up-to-date as La Nación or Teletica. A.M. Costa Rica also is a training ground for English-speaking university graduates who wish to learn Latin culture and international journalism. In 10 years we hope international reporting from Latin America will have a large contingent of our alumni. In addition to me, the owners of A.M. Costa Rica are Sharon Brodell, my wife, and Saray Ramírez Vindas, our Costa Rican associate and friend. We appreciate your support over the last year. We promise to do better. And we are always open to your suggestions. Technical stuff: The publication is being done on a Macintosh iMac computer with Netscape Composer as a HTML assistant. There are other better programs, but the goal of A.M. Costa Rica is simplicity because Internet connections in Costa Rica, thanks to a government monopoly, are slow and uncertain. At times of peak use, about 9 a.m. and between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., a typical page from this publication may take from two to five minutes to load on a remote computer in Costa Rica. This also is why we have limited the use of complex programming techniques. The publication is best viewed with Netscape Navigator because Microsoft Explorer pretty much does what it wants with font information. Privacy We are not going to share bulk e-mail addresses, telephone numbers or other information with anyone who is not connected with A.M. Costa Rica. We would never provide names and e-mail addresses of readers to a list broker or others involved in online commerce. However, We will put e-mail addresses as contact information in classified advertising unless the advertiser specifically requests that the e-mail address not be included. Naturally, A.M. Costa Rica, as any newspaper would, will use names, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses collected through its daily operations as contact information needed to write news stories and to conduct limited solicitations for advertising. Some programs out there lift e-mail addresses from our Web pages. Other program send out unwanted e-mails using random return addresses. If you get an unwanted commercial message from A.M. Costa Rica, it is a forged message. We do not do that. We also do not send out vast quantities of unsolicited e-mails. Copyright Material published in A.M. Costa Rica is copyrighted under U.S., Costa Rican and international law. Anyone needs our permission to use any of the material. We will be liberal in giving permission to commercial and non-commercial entities. Absent our approval, persons not connected with the newspaper must follow strict copyright guidelines. Jurisdiction A.M. Costa Rica is published from our server in the United States. Any disputes shall be adjudicated according to U.S. law, specifically that of the State of California where our Internet provider has its facilities. Statistics Our readership statistics usually are available from a link on the lower righthand side of Page One. |
In San José we are located in Barrio Otoya, one of the distinctive sections of the city with restored older homes just three blocks north of Casa Amarilla, the foreign ministry. Our address in Costa Rican terms is: San José, Barrio Otoya, calles 13-15, avenida 11 bis, de la entrada de emergencias del Hospital Calderón Guardia, 100 metros oeste, cincuenta metros norte y setenta y cinco metros oeste, penúltima casa a mano derecha, portón de rejas negras. Our telephone number is: In San José: 2223-1327 From the North America, the full telephone number would be 011-506-2223-1327 Our editor's e-mail address is For payments: We take deposits at Banco Nacional in our corporate name: Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.:
dollars: 100-02-000-617222-5 Our Pay Pal payment address there is payment@amcostarica.com |
| Home | Calendar | Place
a classified ad |
Classifieds | Real estate | Food | sports | |
