With over 150% traffic growth in 2010 and an even more impressive January and February in 2011, I am very pumped about the future of WSO and some new stuff we have in store for this year...but before I go there, let me just say a HUGE THANK YOU to all of the active users here on WSO for making it what it is.
I know some of us believe in very different (political, social, etc.) ideologies, but I think overall there is a mutual respect for the majority of users (including the kick-ass Certified Users we have) that has created a really high level of debate. I know I myself have learned a ton about Wall Street, politics and even philosophy just by browsing the boards every day.
I am confident that 2011 will be an awesome year for us and that we will keep getting better. Without further ado, here are some things we have in the works:
- mock interview Video Library.
In a few more months we will have enough recorded mock interviews to launch a video library. Yes, we will be charging a subscription to access this, but I really think this (as a derivative of Wall Street Mentors) will make WSO just that much more valuable. Curious how other people interview? Now you can watch them as they either nail a question or struggle through it. In the process, we think you will learn a lot about your own level of preparation.
- More Detailed FAQ Section
We are finally taking on this herculean task of updating the FAQ section (thanks to a dedicated intern) to try and create a thorough resource new users can browse through to educate themselves before they ask a question that will get monkey shit thrown at them. Thanks Compbanker (and the many other users that kept nagging at me to make this better).
- WSO Sponsored Events
With the success of Monty's Energy Rodeo, I think we could have a similar event up in New York some time this summer...I still haven't had time to set anything in motion yet but maybe Monty could help since he clearly knows how to pull one off. Monty, thoughts?
To help us in our march to 100,000 users, please invite your friends and colleagues to come join the discussion (and yes, you get wso credits for sending invites which will let you reward some Silver Bananas and throw monkey shit at your favorite or least favorite users).
This is both great news and clearly a function of the hilarity that I bring to the table.
Without a doubt lol
Congrats buddy! When will I be getting my star btw?
did you send Ivy an email from work? i've been getting swamped lately with jdo stuff as well but if you have and didnt hear back i will get in touch with her...she might have held back given your high number of monkey shits but will look into it if you did send a message.
Fair enough, although in my defense, 25 shits were because I think paying for sex is lame, and 60 were because I think Baghdad deserves the 1B they're asking for...
That also means more competition for internships / jobs!!
I'm game
Love that WSO. Awesomely entertaining.
Congrats Paddy!! Keep up the good work!!
Lmao, nice MBP.
That's great Patrick, look forward to seeing more from WSO and JDO in the future.
Congrats! Glad we could help!
Congratulations, everyone. I am happy to be part of the WSO family.
congrats!! I'd definitely be in for a WSO event in NYC this summer
This site is like crack-cocaine to me.... way to be Patrick...
2nd this. Definitely competing with my access frequency to facebook.
Thanks for creating such a great space for everyone to openly discuss their unique perceptions. And congratulations on the success!
I spend most of my non-math lectures browsing WSO. In fact, I've had at least five insist that I stop using the site excessively. 'Nuff said.
Congrats Patrick. Nice to see the community growing!
Well done, Patrick. The site has been a productive outlet for myself and a ton (49,999) of others... I hope it continues to prosper and that more and more monkeys see the light in the future.
And good luck on JDoasis too!
Congratulations!
IDEA: Set up some kind of Silver Banana tracker. For example, while I am relatively new to WSO (and have only racked up 3 SB's), every time I log on I feverishly look to see if I have been awarded any SB's.
Say I was awarded a SB, but had posted on 5 different topics the last time I was online, I have to go through each topic and find my post to see if it was the winner. It would be nice if there was some sort of history of posts that had been awarded SB's.
Anyone else agree?.....Or maybe I just need to calm down with my SB's? Just an idea.
Click my account - click view next to your nanners - click the link that corresponds to the SB. Done. You're welcome.
Congrats on creating a site strong enough to attract such activity. I know it's been incredibly informative in my recruiting process and I credit a huge part of whatever success I've had so far to what I've been able to absorb just through exposure to the industry through this site.
Thank you, Patrick.
Congrats.
good shit sir... this is a great site and I'm confident it's quality will continue. just keep doin what you're doin...
Congrats Pat, I am extremely happy to be a part of WSO, thank you for the opportunity to continually help the community
Congrats everbody. Patrick, any idea how many unique visitors wso has? I know I creeped for about a solid year before registering.
In 2010 we had 6.6 million visits, 2.8 million UNIQUE visitors.
In 2011 we are on pace (so far) for ~10 million visits and 4.5 million unique visitors.
Hot fire. I honestly spend more time on this forum than basically any other site (including Facebook.) The debates and discussions that go on here are some of the best I've been a part of.
Wow, so on average, people just visit a couple times per year. I visit a couple hundred times per week.
Of the 2.8mm unique visitors, how many do you think are unique people? I really can't imagine people visiting a couple times a year on average. I would think less than a million unique individuals. Do corporate networks somehow throw off the uniqueness tracker?
In any case, congrats!
I believe Google Analytics tracks "absolute uniques" as unique IP addresses...so I would think that on average it's a fairly accurate representation.
The visits vs. unique visitors numbers don't really surprise me since we have a small but loyal base of several thousand users that visit ~100 times / year but also a much higher number of people that come by once and don't come back.
One thing we are working on now is trying to make it easier for people to sign up on WSO by using Facebook Connect / LinkedIn profiles, etc...obviously some people are concerned about their anonymity, but others don't care.
Right now we're at ~100 (a bit more) new users per day or ~3,000 per month. That would put us around 80,000 by end of 2011 if we keep up this pace and around 100k some time middle of 2012. If we could somehow get that to ~200/day we could hit 100k in 2011, but doubling our sign up rate won't be easy.
Don't worry man we've got your back. I think I've signed up like 50 people since I joined. Everyone I mention the site to loves it.
On my corporate network, I believe my IP address changes roughly once a month (pretty sure between 2 weeks and 2 months) and if this is common, this could cause many of your statistics to be off. I don't know how detailed your data is, but I would imagine you could find a trend of IP addresses showing up a lot for a month and then dying, and another IP address replacing them. With an outlier like HPM I am sure you could find just his IP addresses (most frequent) and see how often it changes. This could also cause your overall unique visitors count to be overstated by (rough guess) 1.5-3x.
I bet it would also be interesting to analyze the trends of the users that eventually become frequenters - in retrospect, what statistical characteristics are lead indicators of addiction to WSO? Could maybe then promote those lead indicators to new users and/or first-time visitors. Of course, if the IP-switching problem really exists, then all of this would be much more difficult.
Anyways just my 2c, I am sure you know more about all this than I do. Sorry for making a case study out of your company. Congrats again, this site really is a tremendous resource. As someone else mentioned, I could see it having a noticeable impact on the competition in IB, particularly for SA gigs since they seem to be asked about most frequently, and can probably benefit more from advice than a FT candidate could.
Great news! Congrats to the board!
in other news, since Monty is down in Houston, I will likely need someone in NYC to lead the charge for a WSO event in NYC this June.
any takers / someone interested? It would obviously be a huge commitment, but could be a good experience, and I am sure Monty would share all of his skills / tactics.
I might be in NYC by June? I don't know yet
wow 50k that is great. Great work with everything you have done on the site Patrick. Dont get to post as much as I was but I still take the time on the weekends to read through everything that is going on. Truly a great job!
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