NewsBiscuit

NewsBiscuit is one year old! It was launched on the morning of 18th September 2006 with a ceremonial crashing of the server, followed by a few large bills and some charming hate mail most of it from the data protection office. Three hundred and sixty five stories later (bar the odd lazy repeat over Easter) the site is growing in ‘pageviews’ and ‘reach’ and other statistics on the graph that we don’t really understand. A big thank you to everyone who has made the site such a success over the past year, most notably Sarah working away in the admin department of NewsBiscuit HQ, Dominic who fixes weird things we didn’t realize would take so long and Pauly who seems to know more about the internet than Tim Berners-Lee.

The first year has flown by, and I think we can say that it has been pretty successful in terms of growth, feedback and laughs, particularly from the accountant when he saw our business plan. How many hits does NewsBiscuit now get? Well less than The Onion but more than that secret blog of the anonymous local government accountant. We have swung wildly and inexplicably up and down, but as we head into autumn the curve seems generally upwards. The United States is over-taking the UK for number of hits, but we won’t let that affect the style of the site, period.

We have had enquiries from outside investors, publishers and TV and radio producers, but are wary of taking NewsBiscuit to the next stage until we are really confident that Phase One has been a success. That is to be Britain’s most visited and lucrative porn and gambling site – and frankly we are beginning to wonder if we have been going about it all wrong. In fact all NewsBiscuit ever set out to be was a entertaining site that you might click on between reading your personal emails and checking if anyone had bid for that old Amstrad keyboard you were trying to flog on eBay. Our motto is ‘we never underestimate how bored you are at work.’

But the other reason for launching the site, (they said, going all serious and worthy) was to provide an outlet for new writing, where aspiring gag-writers could tentatively offer up their material and then have their confidence shattered by having everyone else give them one out of ten for their weak pun involving the word ‘Bush’. In fact the submissions board, (which is really the Unique Selling Point of NewsBiscuit), has been a far greater success than we dared hope with a large proportion of front pages coming from outsiders. In the days when the editors were established comedy scriptwriters in the TV industry we were always really encouraged by the number of new writers coming through. Very few. But now it seems there is in fact a lot of talent out there, and NewsBiscuit is one extra place where amateur writers can try stuff out and hopefully improve. Last month we actually had a request that a couple of items be used as fake news stories in a new Eddie Murphy movie that is in production in Hollywood, which frankly is an annoyingly huge exposure for a couple of occasional contributors to the site. The submissions board and chat room have generally been constructive and supportive, and we have had many joint efforts on the front page written in teams by people who live miles apart and have never met one another. That’s the great thing about the internet, it takes far longer to realize how creepy other people are. But wiki-comedy writing is developing on this site like nowhere else in the world; look how last week’s RyanAir story emerged from an overlong, rather unwieldy piece with a weak headline into a cracking story that was forwarded around the world. One important thing to remember – this site does not ask you to click on a little button surrending copywright to your fine material, not even if the idea has been completely rewritten by the NewsBiscuit editors. The stuff still belongs to you and if we ever get to use it in a book or on the radio, you will be credited and paid. Where stuff has been team written we will just shrug and say, ‘Look there’s your 89p, you sort it out between the twelve of you.’

There has also been some wonderfully creative work on the images front, and a big thanks is due to Red for his hardwork creating brilliant pics that lift the stories to another level – the Ulster Murals being a case in point. But to all the outside contributors a huge vote of thanks is due. It seems unfair to pick out any individual writers, but without the input from the submissions board, it is unlikely that NewsBiscuit would have made it through its first year. If you feel like giving in another way, the site doesn’t actually make any profit, in fact despite a meagre income from people clicking on Google Ads we are still losing money. Unlike a subscription to Private Eye, or tickets to see a stand up comic, NewsBiscuit is free all year round, so maybe when that Amstrad printer cable on eBay does go for 20p you could give 25% to us. Any donation small or large would be appreciated, and if you are too skint or mean to stretch to that, why not forward the site to half a dozen people in your in-box. One way or another, with your support we hope to be here this time next year.

‘I have seen the future. And it’s funny.’

editor

Posted: Sep 17th, 2007 by NewsBiscuit