
Salon publishes 33% fewer articles, traffic grows 40% - bproper
http://open.salon.com/blog/kerry_lauerman/2012/02/03/hit_record
======
codelust
Unrelated, but relevant point to the discussion: pay for good long form
content. It costs quite a bit to produce it. If you love it, buy it.

I have worked almost a decade in the online media industry in my previous life
and I don't find this particularly surprising. Somewhere around 2005, everyone
in the industry discovered this major obsession with doing stories based on
SEO, than doing stories that did well on their own merit. Unfortunately,
everyone jumped onboard with this idea as it made sense at scale. Fortunately,
half-a-decade down the line, we seem to be waking up to the fact that not
everyone can make a living at scale; only a few can accomplish the scales to
justify that.

The others have to focus on quality, than quantity, to bring them the traffic.

The other unspoken part of the content business is that a tiny minority of the
people who matter in the business actually understand the numbers. Most don't
understand anything beyond total pageviews and then starts the hunt to
increase them at any cost. The dumbest way to increase pageviews is to do more
stories, but they often don't understand the fact that doing more stories
don't come for free and that each story is not as productive as the other in
getting them more traffic.

Quality works, but quality is not easy. It is hard work, time-consuming and
there are no quick fixes.

~~~
jonnathanson
I truly believe that quality will win out over quantity in the long run. The
race to churn out SEO-based, high-volume, crap-quality content farms
represented the first phase in online journalism. It was a race to the bottom.
Sure, that race had some early winners. But the race has been run. The bottom
has been hit. There's no more profit to be reaped there, and besides, the
model makes less and less sense vis-a-vis today's internet.

That's because the future of the mass content aggregation business now belongs
to Facebook, and to other social networking services yet to come. Aggregation
websites are going to look very anachronistic in the coming years, while
content-specialist sites will have to differentiate on subject matter and on
quality.

So what does this mean for content producers? Well, it's no longer about mass
aggregation of cheaply produced crap. It's now about being a high-quality
producer, whose content is more likely to get pickup up ("earned," in media
parlance) by Facebook users, as well as by Google's increasingly sophisticated
ranking algorithms. Thoughtful pieces will matter. Well-written pieces will
matter.

It's not easy, and there's no guarantee that it'll be profitable. And
unfortunately, the advertisers will be monetized by the aggregation layer
(Facebook, most likely) on which content producers will depend. So that leaves
pay-gates and subscriptions, both of which can be circumvented, and which are
often loathed by readers. But however the winning business model gets figured
out, quality will almost certainly play a crucial role in it.

~~~
endgame
I sincerely hope you're correct. The analogue to the Internet in Neal
Stephenson's Anathem is hardly used. Only those who specialise in digging
useful information out of the piles of autogenerated crud bother with it.

------
amitparikh
David Simon, the co-creator of HBO's The Wire and former Baltimore Sun crime
reporter, speaks eloquently during a PBS interview by Bill Moyers on the
demise of print journalism over the past 20 years and the loss of "1st
generation reporting".
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeNc5y7lpYA&t=8m10s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeNc5y7lpYA&t=8m10s))

It's certainly uplifting to see that online journalism has something of a
light at the end of the tunnel. It's just my personal experience, but I find
the shift towards "long-reads," particularly by The New Yorker, The Atlantic,
and other similar publications, to be a great boon to the people of the world.
Is it so hyperbolic to say that "1st generation" journalism is as important to
society as democratic government? I don't think so.

Either way, I'm glad that Salon has published this data to show that there is
another way (a _better_ way?). If you look at all the lemmings that simply
followed the "quick-hits" journalism that Kerry Lauerman is talking about in
this blog post, no one 5 years ago had the guts to turn the model upside down.
I'm very glad and grateful that we are making progress to getting to a point
where "1st generation" journalism can be found -- and will be sought after --
in online media.

~~~
otakucode
If that which the newspapers and television news agencies did was "1st
generation reporting", what would actual transmission of newsworthy
information be? 0th generation?

I mean, for instance, providing a live video feed or a riot, or videos taken
by those in attendance, rather than a reporter talking about the event hours
or days later. The video of Gaddhafi being killed, not the reporters seeking
to let people know what happened without risking giving offense to any
viewers?

It's not particularly relevent to Salon, but I'd prefer to see 'news' be
reduced to uncommented raw feeds of actual video, with absolutely minimal
editing. Show people what is happening. As soon as you 'explain' what is
happening, regardless of intent, you introduce all sorts of biases and
preconceived notions and the like. I would certainly like to see the
continuation of long-form well-researched journalism of the past, which takes
the raw news items and correlates them, provides context and meaning, etc, but
I think that should be separate from 'news' reporting. It is article writing,
which has been important in society for ages. Even though it was originally
created due to the technological limitation of not being capable of finding
original raw material, it does add significant value so it makes sense to keep
it.

However, any medium like this responds to social trends. Society has been
trending anti-intellectual for over 50 years with no sign of slowing. People
do not want to stop and think, they do not want to be exposed to news that
jars them out of their comfort zone. They do not want to read about ideas
different from their own. They certainly do not want any analysis of the ideas
they do hold as true, they see that as attack.

A big help to long-form journalism would be moving away from the concept of
central agencies that employ these reporters. What do those agencies provide?
Nothing. They used to aggregate reporters together, give them access to
technological resources, editors, etc. All of that can be done by some
software with an Internet connection. Take the entire revenue of one of those
large agencies, and provide it directly to the reporters (they can contract
freelance editors online without much trouble). See what kind of quality gets
produced then.

~~~
amitparikh
I agree with some parts of your argument, but I really think that there is
just too much content out there to consume. If you had "raw feeds of actual
video, with absolutely minimal editing," I think you'll find yourself
overwhelmed with information.

The job of the newspaper editor is to condense the material down, and like you
say, correlate and aggregate it to form a narrative that is easier to consume.
Sure, I'll concede that the majority of news editors choose to showcase
worthless information -- particularly on television -- but you have to
understand that it's a capitalist economic model and the newspapers are only
delivering what the consumer wants.

"1st generation" reporting to me means a journalist who goes out and gets the
interviews and video feeds. Do you think there were _pre-existing_ "raw video
feeds" out there for the Enron executives, the survivors of the Japan
earthquake, etc.? "1st generation" reporting comprises the effort it takes a
good journalist to identify which parts of the story need telling and going
out and getting them. Yes, there is inevitable bias -- but we have to be able
to take it with a grain of salt and make up our own mind based on potentially
multiple narratives of the same story.

(Also, just to touch on this... I think you're underestimating the value of
the news agencies. They provide resources to make quality reporting a viable
economic model. In addition, they provide a name behind which the journalists'
sources can trust. Would 'Deep Throat' have divulged his knowledge to
Bernstein and Woodward if they had not been reporting for the Washington Post?
Obviously, we'll never know the answer to that question, but I personally
believe it's an important consideration for any potential source.)

------
ChrisNorstrom
_please let this catch on_ _please let this catch on_

The AOL-ification of journalism has gotten ridiculous over the last few years.
It would be really nice to see content go towards Quality over Quantity.

~~~
jseliger
It does: get subscriptions to <em>The Atlantic</em> or <em>The New Yorker</em>
to see examples of this in action.

------
hristov
Unfortunately, the quality has really gone down. Five years ago, I used to
read Salon every day. They used to have very interesting well researched and
well thought out articles.

Nowadays Salon is progressively obtaining the qualities associated with a bad
blog. A lot of half thought out articles, a lot of lazy opinion pieces, a lot
of random bitching about how this or that is sexist, practically no attempt to
obtain first hand information, just regurgitating popular culture and what
appeared on Gawker two hours prior, movie reviews that sheepishly praise the
latest idiotic big budget movies. Oh and I read a book review where a reviewer
panned a book she had not read.

So yeah, pretty depressing.

~~~
ceol
_> a lot of random bitching about how this or that is sexist_

Just thought I'd point out the humor in you using a gendered word to describe
their tendency to talk about sexism.

~~~
fiblye
Most people don't take the word "bitching" as a sexist term when it's used to
refer to an entire group of unspecified complainers. The only ones that would
find it "sexist" are looking to be offended.

You can also say someone's "dicking around", and it doesn't have the same
gendered connotation as "dick."

~~~
TruthElixirX
Most people are too fucking stupid to concern themselves with such things as
gender equality.

I don't find it offensive, but it is sexist. It just shows a lack of
forethought on your part and a lack of understanding of gender
norms/privilege/etc.

Subtlety assigning words like that is sexist. And dicking around does have
gendered connotations, if you don't realize that then see statement one.

~~~
angersock
Well, now that we've got your side of it, somebody else chiming in:

<http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122>

and

<http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3567>

:)

~~~
libcee
this is at once the best thing i've ever read by esr, and also a perfect
explanation of how open source's image will always remain on top of free
software's.

the second part didn't occur to me until i read through it again, but esr
himself has been putting rms and (much less appropriately) anyone that sees
value in his perspective in an anti-theistic kafkatrap, an especially damning
and potent snare considering that both esr and rms are atheists. that kind of
diabolical abuse has soured me on esr forever, but i admire how brilliantly he
explains it.

------
geargrinder
Since Google changed their algorithms to deal better with web spam and useless
articles, even blackhatters and web spammers know that you have to serve
useful content to get search engine traffic.
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-
sea...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-
engine-spam.html)

Also, how much of this traffic increase has to do with the election, since
Salon is a site that runs a lot of political stories? It is good they are
seeing more traffic with fewer, better articles, but 2 months of record
traffic in an election year would be expected of a political site. What will
be their explanation in a year after the election is over and their traffic
falls?

He specifically mentioned there were no outlier events that drove traffic, but
is that really true? The Republican debates and early primaries have been
dominating most news outlets for a few months now. It certainly drives the
stories on Salon today.

Understanding what drives traffic, whether it be events, advertising, trends,
etc., is essential to craft a content strategy that works in the long run.

I do believe longer, engaging, original stories are good for the user, whether
they are scanning or reading the entire article. They are good for SEO too. It
will be interesting to see what happens with Salon's traffic and their new-
found commitment to better content.

------
MichaelApproved
" _Short (a few hundred words) summaries or explainers about a major news
event covered more in depth by somebody else. In its best form, we wrote short
little decoders of a big story, and tried to link generously to the original
source._ "

I think there's a place for this, if done well. My startup lets the community
summarize popular stories with an emphasis on being short, unsensationalized
and to the point. This means we sacrifice Google traffic but I prefer to
consume _most_ news like this and I know there are others who feel the same.

Of course, there are times you want a deep dive but that's when you go to
Slate, NY Times and the like.

If you're interested, it's <http://skimthat.com>

Edit: This is kind of similar to Open Salon but with a very narrow focus on
the type of writing: summarized news in a dry, direct way with no puns or
jokes. The stories should be as short as possible while giving the reader a
good understanding of the topic.

------
oacgnol
Salon articles are constantly on the top feeds in Pulse News for me, and
they're usually quite compelling. I've never regretted reading any of their
articles.

------
chintan
Salon: 5 million <http://www.quantcast.com/salon.com>

Huff Po: 70 million <http://www.quantcast.com/huffingtonpost.com>

Just sayin'

~~~
rossriley
You have to cross reference that against quality though. In these days of
content farms high traffic does not necessarily correlate against high value.

If the higher quality of writing and audience attracts a more attractive
advertiser audience Salon could get much higher CPM rates without having the
same volume.

~~~
rhizome
HuffPo is definitely straddling the content-farm fence.

