Site Update: June 2012

Our last site update was in 2011. Far too much time has passed for us to remain silent so here we are presenting our latest update. Hopefully the information below will keep you all informed about the latest goings on at Listverse.com.

Our last competition (2011) was met with great responses. In fact, we are still posting the occasional runner up list from it. We gave away two laptops and an iPad. The winners were elated at the announcement on Listverse on Facebook and now we get to announce them publicly in front of our audience of 15 million+ readers. The winners of the two Macbook Airs are Jay from the United States of America, and Jose from Puerto Rico. The winner of the iPad 46GB is Jerwin from the Philippines. Congratulations!

Regulars will know from our site updates in the past, that hosting Listverse is not cheap. We are paying over $500 US for our hosting at present – per month. That price has given us awesome stability and uptime. Unfortunately we have been informed recently that WordPress are going to increase our hosting fees – to $3,750. That is not a typo – our hosting costs are going up 650%. So, we are changing hosts. On the upside, it means we can finally be unshackled from WordPress’s draconian limitations. This is a very exciting proposition – read on:

As we move to a new, more flexible host we will be able to implement some exciting features I have long wanted to see here. First up is author lists – clicking an author will take you to a complete lists of their posts here. Second is favorites – you can “favorite” a list for reading in the future. In addition, this is going to make a Listverse app more viable. So, you can expect this year to see some amazing feature growth and android and iPhone apps for Listverse. In the comments you can help us out by telling us what additional features you would like to see in an app for your mobile device.

Cogitz.com and Mythverse.com are our sister sites. Our plan for 2012 is to begin developing more articles for both. All of my time is taken up with LV so I am seeking writers for the new sites. I have made appeals in the past for paid writers and if you want to add your name to the list you can, by sending me a sample of your work to [email protected].

Our Facebook page has been very popular (as you can see by the sidebar). In addition to the comments on the site, there are also many comments on each list that appear there exclusively. If you don’t “like” us already you should. Furthermore, I always welcome LV friends who add me and am willing for you all to see my daily life (mundane as it may be!) In addition to our 20 thousand follower milestone, we also have reached a few in regards to the number of lists and comments. Below I have listed the numbers for those who may be interested. Additionally, if you wish to be my friend on Facebook you can do so here.

Listverse on Facebook: 23,621 likes
Comments on Listverse: 450,000
Articles on Listverse: 2,170 (that’s more than 21,700 individual items).

Any long term reader of Listverse will recognize that many of our popular lists deal with the macabre. In fact, my favorite lists always do. In keeping with my most favorite subject I thought I would show you one of my prized possessions at home – a human skull (picture above). The skulls belongs to a 30-something year old male. Unfortunately I have no further information on his origins. I have named him Aristotle after my favorite philosopher. In addition, below you will find a list of my favorite macabre lists.

15 Ways we Handle the Dead
10 Horrifying Premature Burials
10 Creepy Aspects of Victorian Life
Top 10 Plants That Will Kill You
Top 10 Places You Don’t Want to Visit
10 Creepy Mysteries You haven’t Heard Of.

Presently Listverse is running with four amazing admins and me, the founder. But a recent increase in spam means that we probably need to redouble our efforts to keep the comments open and free. We are, thankfully, one of the few popular sites around that still permits completely anonymous posting of comments. If you want to be an admin or an editor, please email me at [email protected] with your resume. We will also be considering people as admins for Cogitz and Mythverse.

In the past we have run a number of competitions to bring our lurking list writers out into the open. These competitions have elicited some incredibly high quality posts that we have all enjoyed reading. This month we are going to offer a new style of competition. ALL lists sent in for the next four weeks (June 8 – July 7) will go into the draw to win $2,000 US in cash. The caveat (that means the fine print,) is that the list must be unique to the site (in other words, it can’t appear on the internet anywhere else), it must be at least 1,000 words long (that’s roughly 100 words an entry), it must be entirely your own words: no quoting wikipedia, and it must be clear and excellent English. The competition is open to the entire planet. Funds can be transferred to any part of the world (except North Korea and a few other countries which probably can’t even see this) via bank transfer or paypal. But wait – there’s more. Every list published that doesn’t win the grand prize will be paid $40 US upon publication any time in the future. Submit your entries here. Text only is required – you do not need to submit images or video clips unless you wish to do so.

In one moth Listverse will turn five years old. We would like to celebrate in a special way. Can you give us some suggestions for what we can do to celebrate with all our users all over the world? The weirdest and wackiest ideas are the ones we are most interested in seeing. It is a big milestone for us – our biggest anniversary yet! This is probably also a good time to ask for all general comments about the site -loves, hates, etc. Go crazy in the comments with your opinions and ideas.

Over the last five years we have had a number of requests from advertisers to remove certain ads. This is usually because they contain content which is not safe for work. Regulars will know that we don’t post lists like that very often and it is quite a feat that we have only had eight or so lists (out of 2,000+) complained about. The lists which have been removed will eventually be moved to a new ad-free host and I plan to write a “top 8” list with some explanations and links to the offsite versions. It is unfortunate that advertisers are in such a strong position that they can effectively censor us – but unfortunately the bills need to be paid and so we are compelled to comply.