The TCN journey into unchartered waters is three weeks old. A progress report and a welcome to our first regional partner.
It has been quite a three weeks!
A project to launch a daily news portal in Croatia, encouraging contributions from experts and citizen journalists alike, could (and still can) go in many directions, but the early progress report from the Total Croatia News HQ is very encouraging indeed.
A quick look at the Meet the Authors page will give an indication of how things are going, with more than twenty writers from all over Croatia and abroad who have already made contributions to the site, showcasing life and events in their part of Croatia. And for the majority, it is not just a case of one article, but several, and I for one have learned a lot about the regions of Croatia just by editing the contributions. Slobodan Kadic in Slavonia, Kreso Biskup in Medjimurje, and Michel Percan and Vilijam Zufic in Istria have been flying the regional flags with vigour.
One of my key aims with TCN was to give an English-language voice to the regions of Croatia which do not feature as much in the foreign tourist media. I have been fortunate to have travelled with work in the last few months to places such as Varazdin, Osijek and Baranja, and these are destinations which are fascinating in their own right, and ones which I would like to feature more on the site, so that our readers can get to know them a little better.
With that in mind, I am delighted that Mihael Silac from Osijek News has joined the team. What started with a message of support and wishes of good luck has turned into our first regional partnership, and Osijek News will be sending us some articles in English each week highlighting the issues in Slavonia. Here is the first one, uploaded last night. Thanks for the support, Mihael, and I hope this partnership will be the first of many, so that we can truly bring the magic of all Croatia into international readership. If you are interested in working with us as a regional media partner, and gaining more international exposure for your publication, email us on [email protected]
Not surprisingly, one of the most popular features of the site in its early days has been the amazing photography of Romulic and Stojcic, and we are grateful to Mario and Drazen for their generosity, and for giving us an opportunity to showcase their work. The international contributions are set to increase, in addition to articles from Ashley in California, Cliff in New York, Jo in London, Andrew in Paris and Renata in Ljubljana, and Tanja Radmilo’s column From Croatia with Madness has also been an early hit. Many thanks to all for your contributions so far, including other Croatia-based contributors Danni, Ivana, Tracey, Lee, Zoran, Vivian, Saraj-Jane and Vedran.
Although we are a couple of weeks old, the reach is slowly spreading. We were delighted to reached 2,400 organic Facebook likes for one article on Pula, for example, while the sharing of the site from institutions such as the Croatian Embassy in Washington has given us a great morale boost. As has the latest Alexa rankings, which already ranks TCN in the top 5,000 websites in Croatia after just three weeks.
We are of course still finding our feet in terms of content and format, and expect things to settle down as we find our rhythm in the coming weeks. This is a new journey for us all, but one which has been pretty exciting so far, and we thank you for your early support and interest. If you would like to contribute, please contact us on [email protected] or else enjoy and follow us on Facebook.
