Web Site Starts From a Memo, Gains Millions of Readers

"There was a great growth in audience around big news events," Kaiser said. "Every time page views went up, they plateaued at the new levels."

To many, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was the major story most crucial in growing the site's reputation and traffic. For Peter Baker, who covered the Clinton White House for The Post, the Web provided a unique opportunity to publish updates on the story outside of the daily newspaper cycle. Baker recalls staying up late on the nights prior to the House vote on impeachment and the Senate vote to acquit, in both cases so he could prepare his story for quick publication on the Web.

"It involved a whole new way of thinking," Baker said. "There were a lot of trade-offs involved and we were thinking, 'Do we really want to do this?'"

Thanks to the efforts of Baker and others, including former washingtonpost.com executive editor Douglas B. Feaver and former Post managing editor Steve Coll, filing for the Web site slowly but steadily became a part of the newspaper's culture.

By the time the 2000 election rolled around, the web staffers had gained enough respect to share a work space with editors and reporters from the newspaper. Graham describes the 2000 election as a "coming of age" for the Web site.

It was also during that time period that washingtonpost.com's multimedia section began to evolve. Tom Kennedy, the site's managing editor for multimedia, was hired away from National Geographic in early 1998 and slowly began to develop the visual narrative and presentation techniques that have become one of the washingtonpost.com's hallmarks.

Kennedy's multimedia team played a major role in coverage of the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 by providing video from the Pentagon and stitching together photos of the destruction in New York.

Feaver describes 9/11 as the "day the Internet became a vital part of the way Americans consume news. I compare it to the impact JFK's assassination had on the importance of television news."

The events of 2000 and 2001 also helped executives within the Post Company recognize the significant national and international reach of the Web site. Washingtonpost.com, they realized, wasn't a completely separate product; it could also help market the larger Washington Post brand. Audience spikes around big news events sent a strong message: Readers yearned for the authority of The Washington Post's reporting.

Today, the Web site is updated around-the-clock with Post reporting from its continuous newsdesk. The "CND" -- as it is commonly referred to -- has a staff of three editors and five reporters, and provides content to the Web site. At any given hour, CND reporters can be found writing their own stories or taking notes from Post reporters in the field.

Meanwhile, the upward curve continues in traffic as well. In 2005, the Web site had more than 2.4 billion page views and internal numbers showed a solid increase in the first quarter of 2006.

A common challenge for the site in its 10-year history has been to simultaneously serve its local and national/international audiences. With bloggers, Craigslist and hyperlocal sites as potential challengers, the site focuses much of its energy on "owning" the local audience. Yet, a large percentage of site users come from outside the Washington metropolitan area. In an effort to serve these two constituencies, washingtonpost.com launched a dual home page strategy in July 2005. Users who enter local zip codes as part of their registration receive a local home page, while those who enter any other zip code get a page more weighted to national and international news.

Despite these changes, new challenges appear on the horizon on a daily basis. But Spoon, who left The Post in 2000 and is now managing partner at Polaris Ventures in Boston, remains upbeat. "Post.com is the plane that flies The Washington Post into the future." he said. "We have the transportation to continue into a highly varied media future."

Says Tim Ruder, WPNI's vice president of marketing: "We're still evolving. There are times when it feels like we're still in the early innings of this game."

Graham agrees: "We're just trying to figure out how best to bring the news to the people. We're still in the early days here."