City flooding creates a second wave of online buzz
Web traffic highlight of the week: Edmonton flooding (200,000 page views for main story)
Presumably because it was jealous of all the attention the Calgary biosphere received the week before, Edmonton’s weather threw a hissy fit on June 25, with the result being some localized but intense flooding, a handful of temporary road closures, and a deluge of website traffic; reporter Alicja Siekierska’s profile of the storm easily clinched the top website spot. In fact, the local storm story had more web visitors than the next two top stories combined, both of which were photo galleries out of arenas — Calgary’s flooded Saddledome, and scenes from a Taylor Swift concert at Rexall Place.
Social media highlight of the week: Calgary flooding aftermath
Once again, this highlight is a bit of a cheat: the many flooding stories on the website fed into each other, and a significant amount of the Edmonton flooding traffic came through Facebook and Twitter posts. But turning attention southward, the viral pickups were mostly either stark images of the flooding aftermath (the head of the Calgary Flames’ mascot costume found floating in the Saddledome; an escaped hippo from the Calgary Zoo penned in with construction equipment and temporary fencing) or examinations of unique relief approaches (Tim Hortons launching an “Alberta Rose” doughnut for fundraising; Cambodian orphans fundraising for Calgary).
(Minor hat-tip also to reporter Alex Migdal’s interview with a disaster sociologist, which attracted a significant following on Reddit, one of the social media sites on which the Journal frequently struggles to break out).
Video of the week: NHL Draft Chat
While I could talk about more disaster footage from Calgary — this time rail cars filled with petroleum products trapped on a semi-collapsed bridge — it’s probably more interesting to discuss the most technically ambitious video of the week. A live web chat with writers from across the Postmedia chain fought a few angry microphones and time-zone delays to deliver a preview of the weekend’s NHL draft, the most buzzed-about sports event for the week. (Well, not counting the Stanley Cup final from June 24, of course. In Edmonton, it’s easy not to count the Stanley Cup final, considering how long it’s been since the Oilers came anywhere near it.)
Unexpected dessert of the week: Show Us Your 99 Project
Submissions for the Journal’s Gretzky memorabilia project close Tuesday, but we may have reached the nadir with this week’s announcement of an Edmontonian who reported she has cake from the 1988 Gretzky wedding in her freezer. Insert your own “on ice” joke here. Still, if you think you can top 25-year-old pastry, there’s still time to throw your hat in the ring. Or rink, as it were.