Everyone loves what you guys tend to be up too. This sort of clever work and reporting! Keep up the wonderful works guys. I’ve incorporated you guys to my own blogroll.
– One very satisfied Rhino
reader in the Far East
Hi! I’ve been reading yopur site for a long time noww and finally got the coirage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Austin Texas! Just wanted to tell you keep up the excellent work!
– A grammar- and spelling-challenged Texan who absolutely loves the Rhino Times.
Recently, I wrote an article about the fact that the News & Record is suing Guilford County government (never mind why), and there was a reader in South Korea – of all places – who stumbled across that article, read it and absolutely loved it.
I mean, he loved it.
In fact, he was so crazy about it that he shared it with his friend. That friend, in turn, was equally thrilled by it, so much so that he bought dinner for the first guy – the one who’d shown him the Rhino Times article in the first place.
So, think about that: An article about a legal catfight between Guilford County and the News & Record was so well received on the complete other side of the world that people were buying each other dinners just for sharing it.
Here at this publication, we often joke about the fact that 216 W. Market St., Greensboro, North Carolina is the “World Headquarters of the Rhino Times,” and, if you’re a longtime Rhino reader, you’re probably familiar with that designation.
I think that started years and years ago as something of a running joke – because we mostly cover Guilford County and that’s where the newspaper is distributed. But it turns out that, now, in 2018 – thanks to this remarkable thing we call the internet – the Rhino is read all around the world.
We know that because global readers write in and tell us. They do so all the time.
I didn’t even realize this myself until a while back, when I had a conversation with Rhino Times Managing Editor Elaine Hammer, who handles all the comments from people who respond to our website. That’s when I realized that the news of this area is of great interest to readers in Japan, the Philippines, Asia, Brussels, Texas, New Hampshire – you name it.
Elaine informed me that we are constantly getting all kinds of comments from all over the world. And, for the last few months, she’s been sharing the best of them with me. Now, though it sounds crazy, I promise you that what follows are actual examples of mysterious web comments the Rhino Times has received. We here are not exactly sure what’s going on, but we sure are flattered by the attention and the love we get from these comments.
Here, for instance, is the email we received after I wrote that article about the News & Record suing Guilford County.
“An impressive share!” the sender wrote. “I have just forwarded this onto a friend who has been conducting a little homework on this. And he actually bought me dinner because I stumbled upon it for him. LOL. So allow me to reword this…. Thanks for the meal!!”
That gleeful fan who appears to be from Korea gushed on and on about my article.
So, as I said, apparently, the legal battle between the News & Record and Guilford County, and the Rhino’s coverage of it, is of great interest worldwide.
And it’s not just my articles. Rhino Times Editor John Hammer recently got worldwide attention for an article he did about Natty Greene’s opening a restaurant at Revolution Mill in Greensboro.
“I’ve been browsing online more than 4 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours,” he or she wrote. “It is pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all web owners and bloggers made as good content as you did, the web will be much more useful than ever before. I couldn’t resist commenting. Well written!|”
We get all kinds of emails like that from the Far East and places in Europe, begging us to write more great articles about ribbon cuttings at High Point parks or asking us to please, please, please post more information about new appointees to the Guilford County Board of Equalization and Review. For instance, on one article I wrote about Guilford County government, someone commented, “Maybe you can write subsequent articles relating to this article. I wish to learn more issues about it!|”
People look to our paper for all kinds of answers. We got a message recently from a web poster named Randy who was even asking us about “looking at a few different Nome Alaska Real Estate Agent sites online in your local area.”
Most of the people who write in are so eager to get to know us that they send in web links so that we and our readers can check out their page.
Though these writers always show us a tremendous amount of love, I do have to say that their spelling and grammar skills often leave a little to be desired.
I’ve cleaned up the spelling in some of the quotes used in this column, but here’s an example of one web comment that I’ll leave as is just to show you what I’m talking about: “I havee been surfing on-line more thann 3 hours thwse days, yet I bby no means discovered aany interesting article like yours. Wow, this pst is nice, my sister is analyzing thesse kinds of things, therefore I am going to convey her. I saved as a favorite, I love your site!| Way cool! Some very valid points!”
They also say that Rhinotimes.com is ranked nowhere near high enough on Google; “Great article! This is the kind of information that are meant to be shared around the internet. Disghraceon Google for not positioning this publish upper!”
Yes, I agree. I say that to myself that all the time: Disghraceon Google for that.
Some people I’ve talked to about this mysterious phenomena say there’s a whole army of worker bees on the other side of the world typing hastily all day long for 50 cents an hour to put web comments on random sites and insert web links to draw traffic to them. They say, in other words, that our glowing comments are coming from Far Eastern internet sweatshops in an attempt to increase web traffic to their spam sites through the links they post.
I, however, completely reject that theory and wholeheartedly believe that the Rhino Times is widely read and loved wildly in East Asia and other points unknown, where they are incredibly fascinated by anything that local governments in Guilford County do.
Here’s some strong evidence it’s not spam. Some of them are as opposed to spam as everyone else. One web post we got read, “Great website! I own a similar one [website] and I was just curious if you get a lot of spam responses? If so, how do you prevent it? I get so much lately it’s driving me mad so any support is very much appreciated.”
Thank you for your question sir or madam. The answer, of course, is that, no, we never get spam. But what we do get here at the Rhino Times is a great deal of love and praise from all over the world.
