Headline Surfer® story on Alex Rodriguez ranks 49th of 846 in Google News
Headline Surfer® graphic / 
LAKE MARY, Fla. -- News of the season-long suspension of New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was big news throughout the overnight hours throughout the country.
At 3 a.m., there were 839 headlines listed in the Google News Directories accessed via http://news.google.com/. Headline Surfer® was 49th overall and listed on the second page of the A-Rod headlines shown.
One of the interesting side notes about the coverage is the mix of traditional media outlets and the representation of "new media" such as the Huffington Post, Sports Illustrated magazine's Si.com, Sports Media 101, Deadspin and Bleacher Report.
But as these new media names indicate, most are dedicated exclusively to sports coverage. The notable exception is the Huffington Post. But of the top 100 headlines listed that include the likes of Deadspin and Bleacher Report, the only new media outlet listed that goes well beyond sports is Headline Surfer.®
And of traditional and new media outlets in Florida that had A-Rod related headlines on A-Rod, the Tampa Tribune, Naples Daily News and Miami Herald, only Headline Surfer® had a local byline while the others carried reports from the Associated Press.
This is not the first time Headline Surfer® has been in the mix of top 50 media outlets on big stories.
The 24/7 internet newspaper had the No. 1 ranking during the overnight hours after Casey Anthony was acquitted of murdering her daughter Caylee and released from jail. After the Orlando Sentinel posted its final story online shortly before midnight, it was knocked off the top spot by a story posted by NSBNews.net, the precursor to Headline Surfer®.
The 24/7 internet newspaper had the No. 1 ranking during the overnight hours after Casey Anthony was acquitted of murdering her daughter Caylee and released from jail. After the Orlando Sentinel posted its final story online shortly before midnight, it was knocked off the top spot by a story posted by NSBNews.net, the precursor to Headline Surfer®.
Headline Surfer® also was in the top 10 when the Boston Marathon bombing suspect brothers were on the loose, the ranking in the news directory stemming from the headline, "Boston Marathon bombing suspects: 1 dead; manhunt for 2nd."
This was the lead to the two-paragraph alert intended for local visitors: DAYTONA BEACH -- For those of you just waking up, there has been a lot of police activity overnight in Boston, in particular, nearby Watertown, where cops and two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing exchanged gunfire. One suspect is confirmed dead and a second remains at large.
The coverage included 12 videos uploaded from YouTube from various media outlets in the Boston area.
People who know me often ask why I often post stories during the overnight hours. One of the reasons is I've always been a night owl.
The other is far more significant: There are limited media outlets that post stories between the hours of 1 a.m. and 7 a.m., which demonstrates that their operations are focused on meeting the pre-midnight deadlines for press runs and pre-dawn delivery of the morning paper on driveways of subscribers.
Headline Surfer® could very well be the smallest media outlet in the world. But its headlines appear in the major online news directories and post within minutes in the major search engines.
It demonstrates that the 24/7 internet newspaper is a viable and fast-moving source of news to a global audience in the digital age.