• Tomorrow’s it, folks — 10 years of News Askew’s existence in this world becomes official on Saturday, 7/7/07! Despite some technical issues that we discovered with older versions of Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, tomorrow’s launch is still a GO — Though we may be rolling back a few visual cues on the site to something more simple until we get the kinks worked out. The important thing is that tomorrow’s site works for you and looks right, especially that fancy news engine. So, while tomorrow remains the official launch day, we’ll be continuing to launch new features and visuals AFTER tomorrow, and of course will let you know when that stuff’s on the way — Especially so those of you with older or just plain weird browsers can let us know if you’re having any problems. The goal here is the cleanest, most compatible News Askew yet — Yes, even on the iPhone (Despite the fact Apple hasn’t sent us one to “test” the site with yet…ha!). Do check yesterday’s news for some free links to upgrade those dusty old browsers, if you have the means.

So, let’s just take a look at some statistics, shall we? To date, News Askew has logged a staggering 6,726 news stories…And that’s only counting those muli-story NewsBites as just ONE each. Since the ball got rolling, our busiest month ever was August of 2001, when we logged 147 stories in that 31-day period. Yep, that’s the release month of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. In fact, we always see spikes around flick release time. In March of 2004, we posted 122 news stories (Jersey Girl) and, back in May 1999, 105 (Dogma). Our slowest month ever? The great lull of January 2004 with just 22 stories posted. Big difference, huh?

Over the past 10 years, we’ve enjoyed over 21 million hits to the front page, give or take. Our new hit statistic software at News Askew X is going to tell us a lot more than that — Our busiest days, daily averages, popular browse times, and lots more. Not only will it allow us to serve you better, but it’ll give us some cool stats to share with you every once in a while.

What inspired us to start News Askew? Believe it or not, it was “Chasing Amy” that put us over the line — We’d been fans since Clerks, but after the brilliant trifecta of flicks, and especially that moving conclusion to Chasing Amy, we knew that Kevin was onto something great with View Askew Productions. We wanted to get our voices out there. 10 years later, here we are — Proud to say that we remain the home of the biggest and baddest View Askew news database on the web. And things are getting better all the time.

We’ll see you tomorrow with a new site — Some of you will immediately fall in love, some will say “go back to the old site!” and some will just say “Huh?”. Give it some time, browse around, and watch for continued updates, enhancements, and features — We think you’ll agree that this is, by far, the best News Askew yet.