3 million page views. 42 interns.

By Les Tan

Les Tan, editor of Red Sports, speaking with the interns at the REDaction! induction. (Photo 1 © Lai Jun Wei)

I know, I know. Posts like these are immodest. But it’s 3 million page views after all. Since we celebrate the fastest, highest, strongest on redsports.sg, hitting the 3-million mark calls for a little celebration because we’ve reached a new high.

We crossed the 3-million mark a few days ago almost unnoticed because I’ve been trying to keep up with the stories. This site went live on February 1, 2007, which seems like ages ago now. I’ve enjoyed watching the many games I’ve attended, the only regret being that I can’t watch more of your games and feature them on redsports.sg.

That’s why we started the REDaction! internship programme to expose, equip and encourage more of you to try out sports journalism and photography. I thought that only 5-10 would sign up at best. Guess how many signed up?

42.

Isn’t that great? Of course, we now have the problem of making sure that the 42 of them have a meaningful internship, but that’s a nice problem to have. And don’t get me started on office space. I have none. But that’s a matter for another time.

More importantly, you and I can be collectively grateful that enthusiastic and talented Singaporeans are stepping up to provide a community service to the nation at large.

And so we continue with our mission here at Red Sports of bringing the vibrant and passionate world of Singapore sports to light. May the stories to come continue to give encouragement, inspiration and motivation to all athletes, young and old, and may Singaporeans come together to encourage all our athletes to go higher, faster, stronger.

Red Sports. Always Game.

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Red Sports Statistics

Traffic ranking of sites visited by Singapore-based readers provided by Alexa.com (as of date of post):

channelnewsasia.com – 45
xiaxue.blogspot.com – 148
togoparts.com – 379
redsports.sg – 411
mrbrown.com – 807
soccernet.com – 1,502
singaporesports.sg – 3,327
adrenaline.sg – 16,647

Absolute unique visitors – 37,218 (Last 30 days. source: Google analytics)

(Please note that some industry experts consider alexa.com imperfect. Another ranking service provided by Hitwise is sometimes used by larger sites. However, we found out we had to pay a four-figure sum to get ourselves ranked. We didn’t see the point of spending that kind of money to get ranked at this stage.)

Red Sports webmaster Bob Lancione giving interns an idea of what the back end of the site is about. (Photo 2 © Lai Jun Wei)

Red Sports writer, Jan Lin, conducts a practical with the interns. (Photo 3 © Lai Jun Wei)

Some of the interns get going on the practical exercise. (Photo 4 © Lai Jun Wei)

The practical gets a little intense… (Photo 5 © Lai Jun Wei)

“Hmm…now how do I phrase it?” (Photo 6 © Lai Jun Wei)

Keep on typing! (Photo 7 © Lai Jun Wei)

Ng Li Hui, our youngest intern at 15+, heard about the REDaction! internship programme when her principal referred to the site at assembly. (Photo 8 © Lai Jun Wei)