Rhoades Less Traveled:

It’s no secret the news business is in a state of flux.

Every news outlet I can think of is trying to grapple with this beast we call “the net,” as in the Internet. And for a simple reason: More and more, that’s where readers are migrating — for free information about their communities, their states, their nations and the world at large.

We at the Daily Pilot have made exhaustive efforts to make our website as interesting and relevant as possible, all in the name of drawing eyeballs to our hyper-local — “if it doesn’t happen in Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, it’s not news to us” — product.

We’ve done pretty well, I think, considering the Pilot didn’t have its own website until 2005. Now, our site draws about 8,000 viewers a day. Nothing to sneeze at for a small, six-day-a-week enterprise.

One great feature of websites is that you can track the popularity, or lack thereof, of your content, which leads me to this interesting factoid: this past week, our blogs drew more attention than our news stories, our calendar, our sports and everything else.

A couple of examples:

 Our top story for the past two weeks, written by Joseph Serna, was about a high school teacher who was arrested on suspicion of giving marijuana to a student. Since it ran almost two weeks ago, it’s received 969 hits. In comparison, City Editor Paul Anderson’s blog, counting from last Sunday through Friday, got 2,616 hits (as of this writing).

 Sports reporter Barry Faulkner’s story about a local boy does good (a Newport Harbor High athlete now playing for the Colorado Rockies), got 916 hits. But in the same time period, Sports Reporter David Carrillo’s blog got more than 2,500 hits.

 Serna’s story about a bank robbery in Costa Mesa got 811 hits. In the same time period, Sports Editor Steve Virgen’s blog got 1,649 hits.

Part of the reason for this is that it’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. In other words, we’re comparing one news story to a week of blog posts. So to simplify: We may be comparing one news story to five blog entries.

And there’s the rub, you might say.

I wouldn’t disagree, but I would add that our blogs are getting more and more attention. The numbers don’t lie.

Why is this?

I’m not sure anyone has an answer. Less formal. More conversational and engaging? Less traditional, more hip?

It’s anyone’s guess.

But I urge you to see for yourself. Just go to www.dailypilot.com and scroll down to “Bloggers.”

Anderson’s blog, by the way, is titled “Supplied to Anderson.”

But don’t forget about mine, titled “Rhoades Less Traveled,” or any of the others, for that matter.

They’re filled with fun, colorful, insightful stuff, and my money says you won’t be disappointed.

Editor BRADY RHOADES may be reached at (714) 966-4607 or at [email protected].