It's been a big year for Londonist. We franchised the site away from the Gothamist network, teamed up with local startup LDN Creative, moved the site over to a new publishing platform (Wordpress), launched our first mobile app, ran a photo exhibition and secured the first ever Foursquare Superswarm badge in the UK. Oh, and we just published our 20,000th article after more than six years covering everything London.
We'd like to think it's also been another good year in terms of content, which is, after all, why you visit the site in the first place. So, in rather predictable fashion, we thought we'd round up the top 10 posts published 2010, as measured by pageviews. The results are somewhat skewed in favour of posts from the first half of the year (they've had longer to accrue views), but nevertheless, here are the top 10 in reverse order. Viewing figures do not include visits to the mobile version of the site, nor RSS views.
10. In Pictures: Strata Tower, Residential Skyscraper At Elephant And Castle
16,000 views
Londonist was among the first to view London from the top of that weird electric shaver-shaped tower, recently completed in E&C.
9. Where Is The Centre Of London?: Finding The Real Midtown
17,000 views
Irked by the continuing estate agent terminology for Holborn (midtown), we decided to work out, almost scientifically, where the real centre of town lies. Using a cardboard cut-out and a needle.
8. The Fleet River: Paddling Through London's Most Famous Sewer
18,000 views
We got to splish-splash through the famous buried river (now a sewer) beneath Farringdon Street. It doesn't smell as much as you'd think.
7. Nido Spitalfields: A Tour Of London's New Student Residence Skyscraper
18,000 views
In which we ascended to the top of the controversial accommodation block which towers over Spitalfields.
6. New Banksy Pub Mural Is A Fake
18,000 views
Having the word 'Banksy' in your title is a sure-fire way to reap pageviews. The tactic may also work in the real world. A Primrose Hill pub 'discovered' a Banksy-esque mural on the wall of its beer garden. We called fake. A few months after this post, we heard that the pub was up for sale. You may think that the mural was a cunning means of raising the asking price; we couldn't possibly comment.
5. Aldwych Station: The Bits You Won't See
21,000 views
As TfL prepared to open the upper level of the abandoned Tube station, we published photos we took at platform level during an earlier visit.
4. In Pictures: The Shard As Seen From Around London
27,000 views
London's latest landmark as viewed from 14 different locations. Seems you lot like posts about new skyscrapers.
3. Whale Skeleton On Display At Museum of London Docklands
33,000 views
Because there are few things more alluring in life than a decomposed cetacean.
2. London's Twitter Traffic Mapped As Contoured Landscape
45,000 views
Proving what a bunch of geeks you lot are, the second most popular post of the year featured a topographic map of London's Twitter hotspots.
1. A Tour Of The New East London Line
61,000 views
Back in March we were lucky enough to get a tour of the first section of the new London Overground routes to open - from New Cross to Dalston - visiting stations, depots and even riding in the drivers cab along a new section of track.
Other notable posts include our series re-examining every chapter from a 1960s London guidebook, our suggestions for solving London's drinking problems, our election liveblog, climbing Tower 42 and walking 20 miles for charity (not on the same day), mapping inventions from London, and determining (with your help) the best London novel and film.
Thanks to everyone who's read, written, commented, tweeted, Facebooked, Foursquared or otherwise interacted with us over the past year. We have a sneaky suspicion that 2011 will be somewhat bigger and better for Londonist than even this remarkable year.
