Just how much has traffic increased on the DISD blog?

I’ve reported that the Dallas Independent School District blog run by Kent Fischer and Tawnell Hobbs is on fire because of a financial crisis in the Dallas school district.

But just how on fire is it?

Prior to September 10 — the day the budget crisis broke — the DISD blog averaged about 3,000 page views a day. Last week, the blog got 106,000+ page views. It has been averaging about 10,000 page views a day since this huge story broke.

The blog is also generating a lot more conversation. In the month prior to the financial crisis, the blog received about 970 comments. In the month since, the blog has received about 2,100 comments. In addition, Hobbs has been live blogging important meetings, which also generate a lot of user feedback.

Last week Thursday, Hobbs did another live blog. This time the live blog was of a meeting in which the district approved 1,100 layoffs. The live blog got more than 30,000 page views and also received about 1,200 comments while the meeting went on.

Hobbs has garnered quite a following lately with her live blogs. They have become an instrumental tool in not only covering important district meetings, but they are also a great way for users to share their thoughts.

Fischer and Hobbs have been able to greatly increase traffic to their blog while also encouraging more conversations in the community. They have done this by giving people unprecedented information and new level of coverage during a crisis.

Fischer and Hobbs blog and write stories about the crisis daily. They link out to what other people are saying. They post documents from the district. They have live blogs.

And most of all, they give people an unprecedented voice in the matter.