Across the month of August, The Spinoff saw visitor numbers climb to a 12-month high, recording 1.5 million visitors and 4.2 million pageviews.
Many came to see the site’s Covid-19 coverage including an interactive map containing locations of interest that gained over 500,000 views. As lockdowns continue, that, along with the rest of the site’s ongoing virus coverage continues to rate well.
The map was created by Harkanwal Singh, the former Head of Data Journalism at New Zealand Herald who recently joined The Spinoff Group as its first Head of Data. He will work on projects for The Spinoff and Daylight Creative, the group’s new content studio.
Singh is joined by former Vend Head of Engineering Ben Gracewood as The Spinoff Group’s first CTO and Eli Rivera, internally promoted to head up its marketing.
The month’s other highlights include New Zealand on Air-funded video series FIRST and Extremely Online, the latter created by Hex Work Productions for Instagram account Shit You Should Care About, which boasts over 3.3m followers.
Founder and CEO Duncan Greive says: “2021 has been a year like no other for The Spinoff Group.
“We’ve invested heavily across the organisation, and recruited a team which will allow us to fully embrace the opportunities in front of us.”
New editorial hires Madeleine Holden, Dylan Reeve and Shanti Mathias join Josie Adams as the first recruits to IRL, a new editorial project for The Spinoff which launches on 13 September. Holden arrives from US digital publication Mel, while Reeve is a longtime collaborator of David Farrier.
Greive says: “These new appointments see The Spinoff revved up and running, with major technology hires complementing new writers and editors.
“We’re thrilled to have such strong, experienced additions to our team.”
