On April 1, 2010, we launched BurbankNBeyond and thought we had the world by the horns!
We didn’t.
After rebranding on April 13, 2013, we changed to myBurbank and thought we had the bull by the horns!
We didn’t.
What we did have was a great foundation to build on and a lot of hard work ahead. We had Mr. Burbank, Ross Benson, not only as our photographer (and the man who has captured Burbank history for 50 years), but he was also the guy who was everywhere and involved with everything.
We knew we had to work hard to make our site hyper-local, which is what Burbankers wanted.
Over the years, we brought in more locals, who knew this city and its people.
Our Associate Editor, Lisa Paredes, started with us in 2013 and her features on the arts, restaurants, and things to do outside of Burbank have been popular sections.
Our main news reporter, Devin Herenda started in 2020 and has broken many stories such as the Pickwick sale recently. Ashley Erikson, who covers many features besides all of the many other hats she wears, started with us in 2018 and has amazing energy and community insights as well as edits our new newsletter weekly. Derek Armentrout, a political science major, just started with us in 2012 and brings insight into various city meetings with subjects that need to be covered.
Of course, what news site is complete without sports. Our Sports Editor, Jim Riggio started writing for us in 2016 and our Assistant Sports Editor and the man who fills in everywhere for us, Rick Assad, started with us in 2015. Rick now also handles police arrests and school board meetings.
Our newest member of the staff is Austin Gebhardt, who has been shooting sports and breaking news for us for over a year now has a great photographer’s eye.
So yes, it takes a village.
And part of that village also acknowledges losses. This past year we lost Joyce Rudolph who now joins Stan Lynch in a place where the news is always good and there are no deadlines.
We also went through a major site upgrade in 2020 that also made us easier to read on mobile devices and tablets.
And after all these years, we have become an overnight success after 12 years! We will not forget the ‘pandemic years’ when we asked our community for help with a GoFundMe campaign and they came through for us in a big way.
So today, we are here with over 70,000 unique readers a month and over 60,000 social media followers. And how about some stats: We have done over 7,900 stories and shot 38,000 pictures and they are all still here. Amazing!
Lastly, we have to thank our advertisers. They are the ones who put their money where their mouth is and supports us monthly with their hard advertising dollars. When you are doing business with one of them, tell them you saw their ad on myBurbank and thank them for supporting community journalism.
As a birthday present for all, we are now launching our Classified Ad section. All ads in the month of April will be FREE as a way to introduce or new feature. You can post your garage sales, job, cars, real estate, or anything else you want people to see.
We can’t thank all of our readers enough for making us an instant success! Okay, maybe not instant but nonetheless, a success. We hope to keep earning your trust and respect for years to come.
And while we are at it and feeling a little humble, we thought we would throw out our Donation Page for you just in case you had a soft spot in your heart today!
