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- Richard MacManus
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Richard MacManus
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7 months ago
in My Techmeme Obsession on A VC
My view is that Techmeme is very focused on breaking tech news, which is why me and many other people follow it religiously and update it several times a day. The fact that TC is top and Venturebeat has risen to #4 and AlleyInsider #5 shows they all put a big emphasis on breaking news. ReadWriteWeb at one point was #3 or something, but then we changed tack a bit and focused more on analysis of tech trends and products, rather than worrying about breaking news. We like to get the odd scoop of course, but it's not really what RWW is about. So we're now at #9, which indicates we still get scoops and are involved in the discussion around top tech stories. But I certainly don't see Techmeme Leaderboard as one of our key stats, because the focus of our site is different than TC and VB and others.
Anyway, fwiw I think that is relevant to your experience with Techmeme Fred. You too are not about breaking news, so it makes sense that it wouldn't be one of your most important traffic sources.
Anyway, fwiw I think that is relevant to your experience with Techmeme Fred. You too are not about breaking news, so it makes sense that it wouldn't be one of your most important traffic sources.
1 reply
Scobleizer
Richard is right. I noticed this change about a year ago in TechMeme. The algorithms became far more focused on news and it was clear to me that Gabe was trying to not cover what bloggers thought anymore (in early days TechMeme was all about bloggers and individual new voices talking about each other) and far more competitive with Google News. That was cool and FriendFeed has jumped in to take up the slack and give new voices a platform to get exposure.
10 months ago
in louisgray.com: Blogs' Never-Ending Battle of Page Views vs. Conversation on louisgray.com
Louis, yes agree that sometimes the line between good content and 'doing it for the page views' is a difficult one. As an example, I wrote a post on Chrome's impact in Enterprise at end of last week. I wrote it late Friday night in a fairly exhausted state and tbh it wasn't one of my better posts. I thought the topic was a worthy one, and I also thought it might generate interest on techmeme etc. However I poorly executed the post and I got hammered in the comments for what was perceived to be a sensationlist type headline: "Chrome Not Ready For Enterprise". Actually, the comments to that post were more worth reading than the post itself. So yes, sometimes blogs do produce stuff under the pressure of getting PV.
Thanks for the interesting conversation, I think about this stuff a lot and ironically probably don't discuss it enough with others.
Thanks for the interesting conversation, I think about this stuff a lot and ironically probably don't discuss it enough with others.
1 reply
gregorylent
discuss it with both your readers and your advertisers .. both will benefit from evolved thinking, and a side effect will be that rww does too
10 months ago
in louisgray.com: Blogs' Never-Ending Battle of Page Views vs. Conversation on louisgray.com
Interesting post Louis. Of course this is something I think about a lot, so I'd like to add my 2 cents. I wrote about 99c worth here btw: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mixed_mess...
You're quite right that if money wasn't part of the equation, there would be a change in the content you see in blogs like RWW. When I first started blogging, and I've noted many times that I started it as a hobby and it was a good 2-3 years before RWW got decent revenue, I did it out of passion for the topic (web tech). Over time it's grown into a publishing business, and that's how I think of RWW today. And yes, the almighty page view is still very important in earning revenue. Until advertising models like CPA (cost per action) become viable, CPM (cost per impression) will continue to be the main way any web property (blogs or otherwise) make money.
But I think it's vitally important for a successful (in many ways) blog to have writers who are passionate about their topics. So I would argue that all of RWW's writers are still very passionate about what we write and we do it because we love web technology. I don't see much difference between many pro and 'hobby' bloggers in that regard, tbh. The main difference is that we *also* need to consider what type of posts do well in page views, comments, etc. So the passion becomes necessarily mixed in with more business-type decisions.
Having said that PV are still important, I do think more can be done by sites like RWW to find other ways to 'monetize'. e.g. I admire a site like paidcontent, which showed that you can become very profitable by mixing the page view model with more niche targeted services (events, reports etc). PaidContent is not the most traffiked blog on the web by any stretch, yet it sold for more than Ars Technica -- which is a heavily traffiked blog. There has to be a lesson in that.
Anyway, nobody knows the answers to these things, we're all learning as we go along :-)
You're quite right that if money wasn't part of the equation, there would be a change in the content you see in blogs like RWW. When I first started blogging, and I've noted many times that I started it as a hobby and it was a good 2-3 years before RWW got decent revenue, I did it out of passion for the topic (web tech). Over time it's grown into a publishing business, and that's how I think of RWW today. And yes, the almighty page view is still very important in earning revenue. Until advertising models like CPA (cost per action) become viable, CPM (cost per impression) will continue to be the main way any web property (blogs or otherwise) make money.
But I think it's vitally important for a successful (in many ways) blog to have writers who are passionate about their topics. So I would argue that all of RWW's writers are still very passionate about what we write and we do it because we love web technology. I don't see much difference between many pro and 'hobby' bloggers in that regard, tbh. The main difference is that we *also* need to consider what type of posts do well in page views, comments, etc. So the passion becomes necessarily mixed in with more business-type decisions.
Having said that PV are still important, I do think more can be done by sites like RWW to find other ways to 'monetize'. e.g. I admire a site like paidcontent, which showed that you can become very profitable by mixing the page view model with more niche targeted services (events, reports etc). PaidContent is not the most traffiked blog on the web by any stretch, yet it sold for more than Ars Technica -- which is a heavily traffiked blog. There has to be a lesson in that.
Anyway, nobody knows the answers to these things, we're all learning as we go along :-)
1 reply
Louis Gray
Richard, appreciate your detail here. We are all learning as we go
along, and I'm glad you've taken the opportunity to write about it and
be transparent in your thinking. RWW is an interesting pro blog as
it's clear your authors are enthusiastic, and active in the
microcommunities around the blog itself, talking to readers wherever
they may be.
That said, I think we also know what types of posts can generate page
views, and often it takes sensationalism. I found back in the March -
May timeframe that being more aggressive in headlines and wordage
would deliver many backlinks and page views, but that wasn't the type
of writer I really wanted to be. It felt like cheating. After a while,
I started to get e-mails on Thursday asking what the week's "b-meme"
was going to be. So I made a conscious decision to be less
inflammatory and more even keel, and I think, that while page views
are lower than they would be otherwise, we're better for it, and we've
found a different set of peers.
Maybe some day a model will arrive so that bloggers can be salaried,
and not driven by the ads and page views. And I know many folks would
like to turn their hobbies into their career, so blogging is very
attractive to some folks. Just keep doing what you're doing and keep
thinking about it and we'll be watching and participating.
along, and I'm glad you've taken the opportunity to write about it and
be transparent in your thinking. RWW is an interesting pro blog as
it's clear your authors are enthusiastic, and active in the
microcommunities around the blog itself, talking to readers wherever
they may be.
That said, I think we also know what types of posts can generate page
views, and often it takes sensationalism. I found back in the March -
May timeframe that being more aggressive in headlines and wordage
would deliver many backlinks and page views, but that wasn't the type
of writer I really wanted to be. It felt like cheating. After a while,
I started to get e-mails on Thursday asking what the week's "b-meme"
was going to be. So I made a conscious decision to be less
inflammatory and more even keel, and I think, that while page views
are lower than they would be otherwise, we're better for it, and we've
found a different set of peers.
Maybe some day a model will arrive so that bloggers can be salaried,
and not driven by the ads and page views. And I know many folks would
like to turn their hobbies into their career, so blogging is very
attractive to some folks. Just keep doing what you're doing and keep
thinking about it and we'll be watching and participating.
