
How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic - cnolden
http://nickoneill.com/how-fortune-stole-a-new-york-times-article-and-got-all-the-traffic-2012-02/
======
danso
Here's why the Forbes blog post worked: it was short and to the (most
interesting) point.

I'm sure Duhigg (the author of the NYT piece) would agree that most
neuropsychology research largely shows that readers' attention spans are short
and easily influenced by the first few grafs of a story.

In fact, any HN user probably has seen the phenomenon where link-bait-titled
stories get hugely upvoted despite the actual body text lacking adequate
corroboration.

What the NYT should do next time is have one of its army of prominent site
bloggers recap the interesting facets of the story. It's a testament to
Duhigg's work that there are many pieces of it that by themselves could make
for captivating posts. It's up to the NYT to capitalize on it.

~~~
quanticle
_What the NYT should do next time is have one of its army of prominent site
bloggers recap the interesting facets of the story._

That is exactly what _The Economist_ does. Most of their writers also have
blogs, and when the magazine publishes a feature piece, their bloggers add
commentary and try to show how the feature is relevant to their beat. It's a
great way of letting readers know that they might be interested in a story
that they'd never hear of otherwise.

In this case, perhaps the New York Times' political reporters could go into
how this sort of behavioral analysis could be used by political campaigns to
market their candidates.

------
rweba
(1) I object to the use of the term "stole" - there is no indication that the
Forbes blogger did anything unethical. She gave links and full attribution to
the NYT article and therefore helped to promote it. YES, the quotes from it
are more extensive and lengthy than you would normally see but on the other
hand it IS a NINE page article so I am pretty sure the excerpts still falls
under Fair Use.

(2) The article in question is a feature article in the NYT Sunday magazine
which is where they put the long in-depth articles which took months to
investigate. These are meant to be Pulitzer Prize level pieces that will get
people talking and make a big splash in the news cycle. This explains both the
length and the title. There is NO WAY the NYT Sunday Magazine is going to lead
with a sensationalist headline like “How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was
Pregnant Before Her Father Did.“ That smacks of The National Enquirer or
something. The title they actually used (“How Companies Learn Your Secrets“)
is not THAT bad either - it got me to click on it when I saw it.

(3) Most importantly, I don't see how Facebook Likes can be the sole metric of
an article's "success." This weeks NYT Sunday Magazine is just officially
coming out today. This is a front page article. Lots of people are going to be
reading,talking and emailing it all week. And when they do they are going to
send the link to the source and NYT will get the credit.

(4) Lastly, - no evidence is given that the TITLE was the SOLE reason why the
Forbes post went viral. It is an interesting topic and the Forbes blogger
adequately summarized it, making the post very "shareable." The promotion and
SEO strategies of Forbes may also have helped.

So in summary the Forbes blog and the NYT magazine are very different types of
publications and it looks like they both succeeded in what they were trying to
do.

~~~
potatolicious
The Forbes "article" would have qualified as blogspam in every community I've
been in. Giving proper attribution and linkback is a necessary but
insufficient requirement.

The question is: how much did Forbes add to the original content to warrant a
clickthrough? If nothing of value was added, then Forbes is just jacking
clicks.

This is something many subreddits have had to deal with - the many, may spam
blogs that simply aggregate links (even if properly attributed) without
providing anything of additional value. In the subreddits I frequent we've
started banning these, maybe the Internet as a whole should also.

It's amazing how prevalent it is these days to click on a link to read a tiny
pithy excerpt of a fuller article. Click on that only to realize that _it_ is
also scraped content with no additional value or commentary. You have to get
5-7 clicks in just to find the original, interesting source that _actually did
any work_.

~~~
Alex3917
"The question is: how much did Forbes add to the original content to warrant a
clickthrough? If nothing of value was added, then Forbes is just jacking
clicks."

I think a better question is whether or not the Forbes article actually took
clicks away from the NYT article. I doubt it actually did. If anything the NYT
article probably got more clicks than it would have gotten otherwise. Yeah, it
sucks that the person who did all the work isn't the one who got the credit,
but it's hard to see how they're worse off for the Forbes piece.

~~~
phillmv
I read the Forbes article and shared it amongst friends.

I wasn't even aware it was originally a NYT piece; I thought it was original
to Forbes.

If you find yourself paginating your summary, you're definitely acting in bad
faith.

------
maratd
This illustrates the business model NYT is pursuing. The NYT simply _cannot_
put out an article with a headline like that. They would lose subscribers.
People who subscribe to the NYT expect a higher level of discourse than
"Target knows you're pregnant". Interestingly, Forbes pursues a dual strategy.
I doubt they would publish a title like that in their magazine. On the web
though, they might as well be The New York Post.

~~~
petercooper
The Daily Mail (UK) has a similar approach. Their site is the most popular
newspaper site globally and while it _shares_ content with its print edition,
the site focuses hard on mass market and celebrity stories. The print edition,
on the other hand, is IMHO mostly "immigrants are evil" and Fox News-style
scaremongering that its retired, middle Englander audience relishes.

~~~
wyclif
The Guardian is almost as bad. When I loaded their page just now, the top
story in the sidebar was also celebrity news:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/feb/19/stella-
mccartn...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/feb/19/stella-mccartney-
london-fashion-week)

I think it's clear this kind of "news" plays across all age groups and
classes, not simply "middle Englanders." Even wealthy elites have their forms
of lowbrow entertainment. If the goal is to get readers to click on ads,
scantily-clad women work wonders.

~~~
mjwalshe
Its London Fashion Week which is why that story got a lead - and Stela
Macartney frocks are way out of the "middle england " price bracket.

Why do you think it strange that a rare example of the UK actually making
stuff is featured?

~~~
wyclif
I don't think it's strange. I'm suggesting the opposite: it's normal across
most newspaper websites in every Western country. The parent was making the
claim that only certain classes respond to this kind of marketing.

~~~
petercooper
No, I said the Mail's _Web site_ is general and mass market ("the site focuses
hard on mass market and celebrity stories"). It was their _paper_ I said
focuses on middle Englanders :-)

------
hellosamdwyer
Let's see... the NYT article was the cover story for the New York Times
magazine, a high-quality long form read with a circulation of 1,623,697/week
[wikipedia]. The high quality of these long form articles are one reasons why
people pay to read the Times. Presumably, the Forbes post will not be in
print.

The NYtimes.com has 16.3m monthly US visits, Forbes has 10.5m. [Compete] The
NYT article has 435 comments (sign of high engagement) v. Forbes' 155.

I'm not sure how he pulled the total FB share data for the NYT article - they
don't display that sharing information in the same way Forbes does.

In short, despite the validity of Nick O'Neil's main point - that a more
descriptive title and a synoptic treatment can travel well - his rhetoric is
more than a little overblown. Details matter, and what the Times article
includes is deep context, originality, and above all, diligence.

As far as a regurgitative blog post making anyone's career... ha, I guess?
Only if you want your career to be limited to that activity. The Forbes writer
knows it - that's why she includes 6(!) links to the original article, as well
as a plug of the original writer's upcoming book. Careers are built on
respect, and the most valuable quality a writer or article can have is
credibility. Otherwise, it's rubbish, no matter how many people buy it.

And, ultimately, the people who you want to respect you will know you make
rubbish.

------
jawns
Oh man -- he got the title of the magazine wrong! It's Forbes, not Fortune.

Anybody care to edit the title of the HN submission for accuracy?

~~~
ComputerGuru
TFA has the title wrong as well - changing the title on HN won't really change
much.

~~~
dfield
Fairly ironic given the content of the article!

------
forrestthewoods
The title was better for Forbes, but the article length was more relevant I
think. Forbes article was two short pages while the NY Times was 7 long pages.
I have half a dozen long NY Times articles bookmarked to read later. I don't
know if I'll ever get around to it.

~~~
mtkd
Thinking about it - in last couple of months I've done this with every long
article I've come across. My Instapaper has a week of reading.

------
keithvan
If anything, the Forbes _reblog_ shows how oversensationalized media is
expected to be. Even in academia and many peer-reviewed journals, there is a
shift towards witty or funny titles in the form of "attention grabber: what
this paper really is about". The colon is an imperative. I give an example:
"Looking for My Penis: The Eroticized Asian in Gay Video Porn". You can find
these examples all throughout peer-reviewed journals and books -- this one
came from a textbook: A companion to Asian American studies, published by
Wiley.

Even academics need to grab attention, too, and it's part of the product of
the information economy (where there is a surplus of information) and a
scarcity of time (i.e, attention).

------
antoncohen
I don't see how Forbes "stole" the New York Times article. If anything they
helped drive traffic to it, anyone interested in reading the 9 page article
will do it. The 9 page NYT article itself was based off a 400 page book that
is about to be released. The NYT article isn't stealing the book, anyone
interested in reading 400 pages on the subject will. The NYT has a blog about
news articles (<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/>), if they wanted to blog
about their own article they could have.

There are good reasons to have the same information published with different
levels of detail, they target different people, and can help lead people who
are interested into reading the more detailed versions. For example the NYT
wrote a 2 page article entitled "Flaw Found in an Online Encryption Method,"
which was based on a 17 page research paper. The NYT didn't steal the research
paper. I personally think the NYT article on encryption was a scare story
lacking in almost all technical detail, but it helped publicize research so
people interested in the subject could read the full paper.

------
jbellis
Personally, I tried to share the original NYT article, but it was behind a
registration-wall so I shared the Forbes one instead.

------
adengman
One of my Philosophy professors was extremely adamant about paper titles as he
argued that a paper will be read only if it has a clever or thought provoking
title. After each assignment we critically reviewed all class paper titles
while he provided feedback.

------
jc123
Tangential, but lede is an interesting word and I always thought it was just
"lead". <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lede> Example: In the era
of Linotype and hard copy, an editor might rework a paragraph (or graf) in a
story, circle it and give instructions to composing to have it moved to the
top by using the word "lede." If the editor wrote "lead," the typographer
might think the editor simply wanted "leading" or spacing inserted.

------
wingo
It's definitely relevant here on HN -- a good article with a bad title
probably won't go anywhere. A good article with a great title will stay on the
front page for hours.

~~~
_delirium
That's the main downside to HN's "don't rename the article" policy I think; it
keeps people from editorializing the submissions, but favors submissions from
publications that already chose more linkbaity titles to begin with.

Also perhaps a downside of not having Slashdot-style summaries, in that it
encourages blogspam. If I find an interesting academic paper that I think HN
might like, just submitting it by itself rarely goes anywhere, because there
isn't space to explain why I think it's of interest to HN. Oddly enough it
actually stands a better chance on Reddit, because you have about one sentence
worth of space in the submission title to explain it. On HN, it's better if
you reblog the paper with a one- or two-paragraph blurb, catchy title, and
then submit that instead of the original paper. People will then complain that
you submitted blogspam instead of the original, _but_ most of the time they'll
upvote it more than they would've upvoted the original despite the complaints.

~~~
petercooper
_HN's "don't rename the article" policy_

The guidelines state:

 _You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial
spin on it, the editors may rewrite it._

I frequently write better headlines for items I submit to HN and they are not
often changed by the editors.

------
executive
How Nick O'Neill Stole An Article Forbes Stole From The New York Times And Got
All The Traffic

------
kmfrk
Are Forbes writers paid per post/traffic like Gawker writers are? I can only
imagine this is the incentive that lead to this kind of crap.

~~~
jyblue
I'd be curious to know how much views are accounted for in writers'
compensation too. I would hope the editors of more reputable resources like
Forbes have more sense than that.

~~~
subpixel
I asked the Forbes blogger about the rules, if any, that govern repurposing
content from other publications.

No reply: <https://twitter.com/ryandeussing/status/170337298695720960>

~~~
kmfrk
I think there's a Cold War of plagiarism suits the way everyone and their dog
seem to be copying from each other. That must be the only reason the NYT
aren't throwing a fit - I know I would, if someone did that to my blog
articles.

It seemed particularly bad to plagiarize a feature article like that, though.

------
dmsinger
I wasn't confident that Forbes benefited more from the article than the NYT
which is why I looked up the Likes myself as that was the most unbalanced
comparison metric, and just didn't seem correct. After the look-up, the Likes
are close in number (I prompted the update), and the comments on the NYT are
greater.

Forbes lists the page views, but it's a metric against nothing as the Times
does not.

There's some pretty heavy quoting in the Forbes post (9 paragraphs from the
NYT), but it's all sourced, linked and even encouraged to be clicked-through
to.

While Forbes did well with the post, I'm not convinced they did any better
than the Times (on the web) with it.

------
foreverbanned
The NYT has a registration wall that seems to pop up at random. At the moment
with FF I can't get through unless I had r_=1 to the article url, but with
Chrome it's not there at all. Strange...

------
veyron
Shows who is more interested in intellectually stimulative journalism
(honestly, I found that tidbit a honeypot -- other parts of the article are
far more interesting)

------
jaredmck
The NYT article was also several different themes, somewhat related to each
other, put together. The Forbes re-blog stuck to the one most link-bait theme.

------
benologist
This can't be the NYTimes first brush with this business model, it powers
every major blog these days since The AOL Way leaked and everyone outside of
AOL realized they were doing it wrong.

Engadget have tags for "New York Times", "NewYorkTimes", "NYTimes", "NYT",
"The New York Times" and "TheNewYorkTimes" for the articles they hijack.

------
TomGullen
Can 600k page views really make a writers career? Is that how they measure
success in online writing?

~~~
jyblue
Hasn't pageviews, online or print, always been the metric by which writers
have been held to? I'm sure even the best journalists are pushed to write
about stories their editors think people want to read. At the end of the day,
the number of views/eyeballs you get, the more you can charge for advertising
and the longer your business stays afloat.

------
jrockway
I liked the NYT article a lot more. I'd rather read one article for 10 minutes
than 10 articles in the same amount of time.

In the end, I think the market agrees: people pay real money to read the New
York Times, but nobody pays real money to read Forbes blogs.

------
Tichy
Also, while I would theoretically be interested in the NYT version, it is 9
pages long. So it sits in my "to be read" tab indefinitely. The Forbes article
was doable in a short time frame.

------
8ig8
With so much on the line, you'd think NYT would A/B test article titles.
Anyone know if this is done with modern journalism? Is is feasible?

~~~
njharman
[from business perspective] The news cycle, attention span, and ability for
anyone anywhere to blog/twitter about topic and "steal" your traffic. Makes
breaking news and reaching crit-mass attention now! Makes A/B unrealistic and
not worth the investment. Even on "static" items like this researched article
you see how they failed to be firstest with the mostest and lost the traffic.

[from journalistic perspective] They A/B "test" at the journalist level. They
hire several, the ones that write popular / prize winning articles are kept,
the others get downsized.

------
lwhi
With this sensationalist headline, the article is a case in point.

------
Karellen
Forbes got my traffic because they didn't require me to register, log in, pay
them money, or whatever it was that NYT was trying to get me to do instead of
just showing me the damn article.

~~~
gaius
It should be free to read, because it was free to write, right?

~~~
Karellen
Nowhere did I say I thought it should be free to read. What I am saying is
that if there's some barrier to overcome before I can read a news article, I
am very probably not going to read it. Especially when there's another article
on the same subject, or even summarising the very article I am trying to read,
which does not put any barriers in my way.

I've got 40-odd news articles in my feed reader waiting for my attention. I'm
just not going to spend 5 minutes figuring out how to read any particular
article. That doesn't scale and I'll miss out on a whole bunch of the other
39, some of which are probably at least as interesting as the article with the
barrier I've got to get past.

I'm not averse to paying for content. I'm seriously considering getting a
subscription to LWN.net just so I can read the paid articles a week earlier
than I do now. But that's because LWN has proven over a period of many months
to have a consistently high quality of reporting, and I find a huge majority
of the articles interesting. I'm not sure about NYT's quality of reporting,
but even if it were uniformly excellent I'm fairly sure it would contain a lot
of articles I frankly don't care about, so I'd still be paying money to sort
signal from chaff myself.

------
spacestation
The NYT's article has nine (9!) pages. Are they looking for page views or
what.

Forbes' article is one page.

