Annual Report 2018
Summary
Letter from the CEO
2018 was a difficult year, with lows and highs. In the end, we came out stronger and better set up to fulfil our mission. The year started well until in March 2018, we lost about 15% of our web traffic due to a Google algorithm update -- the first time we've been hit negatively. At the same time, we decided to remove in-banner video ads from our website to improve user experience, which reduced revenue on top of the traffic reduction. Financially, 2018 was a loss.
At the same time, we made progress on other fronts. We attended several conferences which helped us formulate our vision for how we can help improve history teaching. We started producing articles on the Middle Ages. We partnered up with several other organizations that shared our vision. We created a new search engine for our site. Our editorial team greatly improved its processes to improve the quality of our articles and we focused on speeding up our website and optimizing it for search.
Financial difficulties are part of running any organization and we are happy to have overcome them as well as we have. We've ended up stronger and able to tackle big projects for 2019.
A big thank you to all our supporters, donors and members who help make this whole project possible.
Keep reading below for more details!
Jan van der Crabben, CEO
Statistics
19.8 Million Readers
All around the world, 19.8 million individual people visited Ancient History Encyclopedia to learn more about our past. Even though this is not much higher than the previous year, it's still a record number for our publication.
3378 Educational Institutions
We are aware of 3378 schools, universities and libraries who used our website in 2018. That's nearly three times as many as in 2017, so we're very happy with the result. Because of this, 2019 will be very much focused on education.
2101 Articles
This year, we broke the 2000 articles and definitions mark! Our authors and editors published 385 new articles on the website.
We also published the highest number of images in any year, with 1819 new additions.
700,000 Followers
Our social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr grew to an impressive 700,000 followers. That's 100,000 more than last year, so that is a result to be proud of.
Our weekly email newsletter also surpassed 10,000 subscribers.
Key Events
UNESCO Heritage Lab (Paris)
Ancient History Encyclopedia co-sponsored and attended UNESCO Heritage Lab, which was held for the European Heritage Days at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. For the first time since its existence, UNESCO opened its doors to the public.
The event explored all the different ways in which technology can be used to promote, preserve, access and educate about cultural heritage all around the world. It was attended by thousands of people who viewed over 30 exhibitors. We deepened our partnership with the Canadian company Time Passport and found new partners in the Australian company Lithodomos VR.
You can watch our video of the event, too!
Collision (New Orleans)
Ancient History Encyclopedia attended Collision, a North American technology conference. We presented our company as well as our educational vision to other technology companies, advisors and thought leaders. The experience allowed us to better understand our priorities and to better focus our efforts. We also made new partnerships, most notably Time Passport, a Canadian augmented reality cultural heritage company.
REACH (Budapest)
We presented our work at the opening conference of the REACH Project, an EU initiative to bulid Resilient Cultural Heritage and Communities in Europe. The REACH project encourages people to engage in culture and cultural heritage in order to foster creativity and innovation and to empower citizens to face the immense and rapid changes taking place in Europe and beyond.
Lovie Award
We won the Lovie Award in the Silver Winner and the People's Lovie Winner categories. The Lovie Awards are the European version of the Webbie Awards, recognizing the unique and resonant nature of the European Internet community – from Europe’s top web and creative networks and content publishers to cultural and political organizations and individual creators.
You can see our Lovie entry here.
Other Events
The Ancient History Encyclopedia team took part in other events around the globe, sharing our vision and our enthusiasm for digital cultural heritage:
- MBI Al Jaber Foundation Lecture, London
We presented our work and spoke of digital cultural heritage in the Middle East. - EdTechXEurope, London
We presented our work and our plans to provide educational materials for history teachers. - Reading University
We spoke about the need to provide easy-to-understand content to bridge the gap between academia and schools. - Digital Humanities Conference, Mexico City
We presented our work and discussed how the digital humanities could reach a wider public.
New Search Engine
We created a new search engine to power our site search, which adds the ability for users to filter and refine their search based on:
- Keyword
- Content type
- Category
- Subject
- Geography
- Related keywords
Employees
We increased our core team of employees from 2 full-time and 1 part-time to 3 full-time and 2 part-time. In addition, many more volunteers joined our cause and shared their articles, photos, videos and knowledge. Thank you!
Ancient History Encyclopedia Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada.
Ancient History Encyclopedia Limited is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom.
