A few people have pinged me about the comments in the latest Calacanis/Facebook story (part III from last night). Basically, there are a lot of comments amounting to “Why Is This News?” Certainly there’s an argument to be made there — at first the story was about just how hard it was to quit Facebook. Then it was about how it was harder to quit Mahalo. Finally, it became about Facebook calling Calcanis a liar. I think it’s interesting, but I realize not everyone will. And that’s fine, feel free not to read that post.
All that being said, don’t worry too much about the commenters. Two things to always keep in mind:
1) Commenters are a very, very (did I say “very”?) small percentage of the overall readership. In every respect they are the vocal minority. I’m sure there have been case studies about why that is. And I’m sure there will be more. But anyone on any blog would be foolish to let this vocal minority affect the editorial process — partially because of #2.
2) While they squawk about how disinterested they are. Those posts are leading the way in TC traffic today.
Now, let me again state for the record that if I wanted to get more traffic to posts, I easily could by gaming key Google search terms. I don’t do that. And I won’t do that. That said, like it or not, traffic is important for a site being run as a business.
But here’s how I view it: while it’s just one factor in the equation of a story’s success in my head, I like to think of it as the vote from the masses. If people find a post interesting (whether they love it or hate it), they’re going to read it. And at the end of the day, we write what we write hoping that people will read it.
So if you ever see an article where the commenters are saying the news isn’t worthy of a post, just remember that their eyeballs are likely contradicting their tongues. Especially if there are over 100 comments along those lines. If any story has 100 comments, trust me, it has a lot of pageviews.
Why This Is News
A few people have pinged me about the comments in the latest Calacanis/Facebook story (part III from last night). Basically, there are a lot of comments amounting to “Why Is This News?” Certainly there’s an argument to be made there — at first the story was about just how hard it was to quit Facebook. Then it was about how it was harder to quit Mahalo. Finally, it became about Facebook calling Calcanis a liar. I think it’s interesting, but I realize not everyone will. And that’s fine, feel free not to read that post.
All that being said, don’t worry too much about the commenters. Two things to always keep in mind:
1) Commenters are a very, very (did I say “very”?) small percentage of the overall readership. In every respect they are the vocal minority. I’m sure there have been case studies about why that is. And I’m sure there will be more. But anyone on any blog would be foolish to let this vocal minority affect the editorial process — partially because of #2.
2) While they squawk about how disinterested they are. Those posts are leading the way in TC traffic today.
Now, let me again state for the record that if I wanted to get more traffic to posts, I easily could by gaming key Google search terms. I don’t do that. And I won’t do that. That said, like it or not, traffic is important for a site being run as a business.
But here’s how I view it: while it’s just one factor in the equation of a story’s success in my head, I like to think of it as the vote from the masses. If people find a post interesting (whether they love it or hate it), they’re going to read it. And at the end of the day, we write what we write hoping that people will read it.
So if you ever see an article where the commenters are saying the news isn’t worthy of a post, just remember that their eyeballs are likely contradicting their tongues. Especially if there are over 100 comments along those lines. If any story has 100 comments, trust me, it has a lot of pageviews.
Why is this news? Because you’re reading it.