It comes as little surprise that Christchurch's horrifying earthquake appeared at the top, in the middle and at the end of this week's ten most-clicked-on stories.
The 6.3-magnitude tremor rocked the South Island city at lunchtime on Tuesday, and within minutes, terrifying videos and images shot on phones were flying about the Internet.
At the same time, thousands of readers clicked on the article that the SBS online team was frantically updating with each new piece of information as it came to hand. Reports were conflicting, and - with phone and broadcast channels - down, hard to verify, but the images were unequivocal.
Our gallery of user-generated pictures - which has since been updated with aerial shots of Christchurch - was the week's second-highest clicker.
Third on the list was the shocking tale of a US journalist reportedly raped while covering protests in Egypt.
Lara Logan, from CBS, was attacked by a crowd that some reports said were chanting 'Jew! Jew!'. Another account of the incident said a group of Egyptian men were trying to protect Logan from the mob, while yet another said some women chased the attackers away.
Another gallery, this time of World Press photos took fourth place, showcasing all kinds of images, from the deeply disturbing to the uplifting.
Only a header like 'World Press' could carry off photos of piles of people killed in Haiti's quake last year, and a girl whose nose the Taliban hacked off, right next to sport and fashion shots.
In the middle of the list came an article about the death toll in Christchurch, and another about the desperate search for survivors.
Despite all the grave news of the week, it wouldn't be a top ten without a sport scandal or two, and this week a St Kilda teenager was back in the news with lewd-ish videos of AFL agent Ricky Nixon allegedly from her phone.
Nixon admitted to having 'dealings' with the girl, but denied that any of those dealings were sex, contrary to appearances (of him in his underwear on a bed in a room with her). The investigation continues.
The next item also involved football, photographs and blackmail, but it couldn't have differed more to Nixon's torrid-looking tangle.
Arrests were made in an alleged plot to blackmail UK star Wayne Rooney using pictures of his infant son stolen from the family camera.
Readers' interest on uprisings across the Arab world hasn't abated, and neither has the violence sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. It's become such a huge and complicated affair that a map of the unrest is by far the easiest way to get one's head around the developments.
That map has appeared among our top ten items for six weeks.
FInally, events in New Zealand left news consumers - and doubtless many Kiwis - looking for answers. However, instead of looking to a higher power, our readers wanted to read what one expert had to say on the reasons for the quake.
Share
