Wellesnet: Alive and well thanks to you

[tonyw]

Excellent news. Please continue the good work.

[RayKelly]

Happy New Year!
Wellesnet ended 2012 with record breaking traffic to the website.
In December, we had 17,230 unique visitors, as well as 190,535 page views.
These numbers represent 13 percent increases over our previous activity highs.
The message board remains our most popular attraction. Kudos to Mike for all of his hard work on the forum.
A special nod to Jeff for establishing this site and Larry for all of his hard work here and on Facebook.
Of course, thanks to everyone who has posted, emailed a suggestion or sent a note of thanks.
As always, if you have any ideas, drop us a line at contactwellesnet@gmail.com
Have a wonderful 2013.

[Wellesnet]

Wellesnet is now on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/Wellesnetcom

[RKadin]

After a much-protracted absence, I am delighted to see such a lively and refreshed site still very much here upon my return. Well done to everyone involved. Wellesnet has always been a labour of love - and here is proof positive of the well-traveled adage that "love endures".

[Le Chiffre]

Welcome back, RKadin, glad to see your eloquent posts on the board again. Yes, Wellesnet is a labor of love, and as I've stated before, Orson Welles is an inexhaustible topic of conversation. We may take some lengthy breathers now and then, but the site will keep ticking! In fact, Ray just did a major software upgrade to the board that went without a hitch...so far.

[RKadin]

Nothing like hooking up again with former partners in crime, Mike. Great to see you still kicking it just like old times. Here's to a host of new discoveries of what our visionary was trying to alert us to back when we were likely too mired in the moment to appreciate.

For example, looking about the socio-political landscape today, I see "The Trial" in a whole new, revelatory light. And what Welles worked so hard to make sure made its way into the final cut of "Kane" reaffirms for me his prescience about the dangers inherent in our naïve susceptibilities.

Long may we watch, listen and learn.

[Le Chiffre]

No question, his work has many implications for today's world. The book on Welles is not even close to being complete.

[mido505]

Nice to see you back in action, RKadin; I have read with pleasure many of your older posts.

[Wellesnet]

Considering our once rocky past, it's worth noting our progress in the year since the change in site ownership. We have just signed for another year of service with our longtime web host. Server migration caused an extended outage a month ago, but we are confident that was a one-time problem.
Wellesnet continues to enjoy audience growth due to new site features and a continued interest in Orson Welles' career. The 75th anniversary of "The War of the Worlds this year, the 80th anniversary of the Todd Theatre Festival next year and the centenary of Welles' birth in 2015 promise continued growth.

[Wellesnet]

We finally have the audience numbers for October 2013 and they were even better than expected.
Wellesnet.com welcomed a record 21,333 unique monthly users -- that means 21,333 different PCs, mobile phones, laptops and tablets visited this website last month.
For comparison, before the redesign and expansion of wellesnet.com in late 2012, the website received 13,000 or so visitors each month. We have noted a steady increase since then.
Increase traffic was due in no small part to the premiere of "Too Much Johnson," the 75th anniversary of "The War of the Worlds" and fine contributions from several guest writers.
We began November with news about Woodstock Celebrates' Wellesian celebrations in 2014 and 2015 and an informative interview with producer Michael Dawson.
Stick around, there is more to come.
Please feel free to share any ideas here on the Message Board or email us at contactwellesnet@gmail.com

[Wellesnet]

Wellesnet's audience continues to grow. We were pleasantly surprised by the number of unique visitors during November 2013 - a record 24,443 different tablets, laptops, smartphones and PCs visited the site. There was also a record 196,107 page views and record 49,022 total visits. Thanks for the continued support.

[Wellesnet]

Nothing like exciting news about The Other Side of the Wind to stir interest in Wellesnet.
There was a flood of visits to the website in the final three days of October 2014.
We experienced our highest-ever number of monthly visits - 49,638.
Of that group, there were 20,222 unique monthly visitors, our second best month ever in the site's 13-year history.
We also set a record for "hits" at 581,779

[RayKelly]

Happy New Year!
The past 12 months have been an exciting time. (Read Mike Teal's excellent recap: http://www.wellesnet.com/2014-the-wellesian-year-in-review/).
Behind the scenes, the site changed web hosts after 13 years. So far, it has been smooth sailing with no outages.
Our audience continues to grow as we near the 100th anniversary of Orson Welles' birth on May 6, 2015.
In December 2014, we set a new record for monthly visits to the website (51,292 visits). It was also our second biggest month for unique monthly visitors (23,978).
Here's to an even bigger and better 2015!

[tonyw]

Congratulations Ray. You and your team are doing a fine job.

[tonyw]

I ran KANE on DVD four times in the last 24 hours, once to check it for class showing, fourth for class tonight and the other times to go over the audio-commentaries since I lost my previous notes. Amazingly, I was not fatigued and even in the class screening found something new as I do each time. My thoughts on the film as a "masterpiece" is that it deserves its place in film history since it creatively utilizes not only past and present cinematic traditions but also incorporates elements of music radio and theatre in new synthetic ways. Further thoughts next week. One student film festival this month seems blissfully unaware of Welles's centenary but a former student has posted something on FB dealing with F FOR FAKE as an essay film, a style that Hong Kong writer-director-critic Evans Chan employs. A book of collected essays on his work will appear this year published by Hong Kong University Press once Evans delivers re-mastered copies of his earlier films on DVD to accompany it.