We're celebrating.

SANATOGA PA – The Sanatoga Post, an interactive news resource that covers Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township, the village of Sanatoga PA, and the Pottsgrove (PA) School District, sings “happy birthday” to itself today. It began online publication on Aug. 25, 2008.

Compiled data for The Post, which includes modest estimates for the remaining six days of its statistical year, indicates its website will have been visited by more than 20,000 unique individuals … meaning they were each counted only once, no matter how frequently they returned.

During its first full year of distribution, which officially will be completed on Monday, Aug. 31 (2009), statistics also show The Post readers during the past 12 months will have viewed almost 66,000 pages among more than 1,500 articles published.

The figures – those of unique visits, and of pages viewed – are among any website’s most important gauges of activity and success. “We thank each and every one of our readers, those who have been with us from the first week, and those who discovered us only this week,” said Post Managing Editor Joe Zlomek.

The Sanatoga Post publishes at www.sanatoga.org. Its reported annual statistics reflect actual and calculated readership for the period of Sept. 1, 2008, to Aug. 31, 2009; are compiled from several independent sources, and have not been audited.

The Sanatoga Post and its companion publications, The Limerick Post and The Pottstown Post, are published by Career Education Media Ventures of Sanatoga PA.

Milestones for the quarter that’s about to end:

• Regional distribution through Fwix. Fwix, a national network of websites that filters news and information from thousands of local sources and presents it in real time to readers in specific geographic areas, added all three Post editions – Sanatoga, Limerick and Pottstown – to its Philadelphia regional page on Aug. 13 (2009). The network has broadened The Posts‘ reach beyond Montgomery County PA to Greater Philadelphia.
• Reporting for the ProPublica network. The Posts in late June joined the national ProPublica reporting network to monitor federal economic stimulus spending within its coverage areas. The first three local stories resulting from The Post’s and ProPublica’s combined research efforts, specifically reporting on stimulus funds being spent on U.S. Route 422,  were published in all three editions on July 20. Several others have followed, and more will come in the year ahead.
• Additions to the Resources Page. The “Transportation and The Commute” section of links to other websites on The Sanatoga Post‘s Resources Page was substantially enlarged in late June, primarily in response to reader e-mails for more information about plans for the U.S. Route 422 corridor. The Resources Pages is a constant work-in-progress. It was launched Jan. 7, 2009, and has been modified four times since.
• Introducing The Pottstown Post. On June 5, 2009, at exactly 12:01 a.m. (proof of the strange hours journalists keep), Career Education Media Ventures – publisher of The Sanatoga Post and The Limerick Post – officially launched its third online local news resource, The Pottstown Post. Like the Limerick edition, it is a lower-profile and somewhat more experimental vehicle than that of Sanatoga. It includes Pottstown-exclusive reporting that does not appear elsewhere.