Interview: the success of the DCE website

Over ten years, the DCE website has grown into an important European source of news for drum corps fans. What follows is a discussion with Editor Marco Janssen about the success and growth of the DCE news site.
 
 
10,000 news articles, congratulations! How do you keep it up?
 
"We just look for news on a daily basis. We believe that there is a need for a source of news for drum corps fans. And we don't wait for the press releases; instead we go out and find the news in all corners of the world. We also get a lot more people spontaneously letting us know when they come across something interesting."
 
 
You are really critical though, aren't you?

"Well, we try to produce as much 'real' news as possible. In the past, we have had discussions with corps needing more members and wanting us to run an advertisement, but we don't do that sort of thing, not on the news page anyway. That's our own choice, and I think that approach has been very effective."
 
 
DCE is a contest organisation, so why the news site?
 
"Originally, we had a separate website for DCE: www.indoordrumcorps.com (DCE only went 'outdoor' from 2003), but on 1st June 2002 we started a news site because at the time there was no longer a source of news in Europe. We started with a Dutch news site, and added an English version pretty soon after that. German, French and Italian versions were created later on. We now have employees and translators for all language versions."
 
 
And you used to do that all by yourself?
 
"That's right. I was the webmaster, and the internet wasn't as widely used then. Many corps were still in the process of discovering what they could do with it, and there was hardly any news to be found online. Back then I used to pick up the phone on a regular basis to ring up corps and ask them whether they had any news. That was really quite intensive."
 
 
Is the news widely read?
 
"Absolutely. There are always some news story that are very popular and others that are less popular. DCE news and news about the top corps is generally read the most. September is the month when the most articles are read, and this is no coincidence. The DCE Championships and the National Championships are taking place in that month. Although drum corps in Europe is our main focus, we want to bring news from as wide a spectrum as possible. So we also give some attention to winter guard, indoor percussion and of course drum corps in the U.S. and the rest of the world. The 'real' drum corps news is the most popular."
 
 
What are the visitor numbers like?
 
"When we first started, they shot up to between 150 and 200 visitors per day quite quickly, which was quite a lot back then. Now the norm is between 1,000 and 2,000 per day, with an average of over 10,000 page views per day. And people don't just read our news on the website itself. These days, the articles are also available in other ways, such as on our iPhone app. The app has been downloaded hundreds of times, so our news is fresher than ever these days!"