
King of Clickbait - lambtron
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/virologist
======
sharkweek
_“Our volume of traffic right now is possible only because Facebook has been
very generous about linking to our content,” he said. “I’m aware that they
might not be so generous forever.”_

Next in line. Many folks have relied on FB traffic only to be crushed beneath
the mighty hand of an algorithm change. We've seen it a million times with
Google demolishing a site's traffic overnight with an algo update, and now
we're seeing it with Facebook as well. None of these traffic sources like to
be gamed and will eventually catch up and "fix" the problem.

I have no problem with someone getting paid by capitalizing on third party
traffic sources (in this case social) but it's a fool's errand to assume this
is going to be sustainable once the distributor decides they want a piece of
the pie.

~~~
shostack
This is particularly relevant given that Facebook announced recently that
starting in January they were going to force businesses relying on earned
social traffic to pay to reach those same people. They had already been
tightening the screws on organic traffic for a while now, and will finally be
shutting it off for any sort of promotional or low-quality content post.

I'm really curious to see what that does to publishing businesses like this
that don't promote "businessey" things like "SALE SALE SALE!" or product-
specific stuff.

Ultimately, I'm guessing many of these companies will pay the ransom as long
as it is profitable, and make their best effort to get people into a channel
they control that has fixed pricing (like email). Guessing they will likely
start shifting to other social networks as well.

~~~
sharkweek
I run a movie blog and have seen MASSIVE dropoffs in referrals/engagement on
FB - As it's just me running the site, and my time is zero sum, I have shifted
far more of my focus on email newsletter marketing as it drives far better
traffic. I tried paying to promote a few posts but the ROI was definitely not
there relative to ad revenue.

I have heard from countless other publishers I know who are doing many similar
things as to not get trapped in the FB ecosystem.

~~~
shostack
This can be compounded by the fact that a lot of pages that have a % of fans
that are from "Like farms" have no easy way to filter those out. So now those
companies are paying to reach a garbage-quality audience with an incredibly
poor signal to noise ratio.

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Fede_V
I'm not sure how people make it to the end of that article without being
scared shitless about the future of newspapers.

Newspapers have an incredibly important social function as muckrackers,
exposing corruption, explaining politics, and breaking news. Even the New York
Times, which is as good of a newspaper as you'll find these days has 'native
advertising' which is virtually indistinguishable from regular articles.

~~~
jbob2000
>Newspapers have an incredibly important social function as muckrackers,
exposing corruption, explaining politics, and breaking news

They USED to do that. Now they're owned by conglomerates and billionaires to
parrot their ideals.

~~~
nl
Yeah. I hate how these days they have descended to starting wears to sell
papers[1]. Civilisation will collapse any day now. (To make it clear, the
Spanish/American war was in 1898, and a major contributor to the cause was the
battle for circulation between US newspapers.)

[1]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish–Ame...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish–American_War#Hearst_and_Pulitzer)

~~~
nl
That's "starting _wars_ " of course.

------
alexbecker
I talked with a Spartz Media representative at a job fair a couple years ago.
I remember thinking that their business model was deplorable--essentially
spamming the internet with low-value content--but assumed they would fail. I'm
a little scared to learn I was wrong.

------
nbardy
The title of this article is too ironic not to comment on.

I think it's interesting because a good title itself is intrinsically
"clickbait" or begging you to stop and look for more. From the Paul Graham
essay to the header on a high school science fair board, titles are design to
get your attention. The problem lies now with content which content created
with greater attention to the bait than to the actual body itself. A good
designed title is just that, until it lures you into content which does not
live up to its billing.

If we can't trust titles what now do we use to decide what content is worth
our time?

~~~
Animats
_The title of this article is too ironic not to comment on. -- If we can 't
trust titles what now do we use to decide what content is worth our time?_

This guy's sites feed different titles to different readers, see who clicks
through, and adjust accordingly. That could be detected by suitable anti-spam
algorithms.

~~~
rdrey
Many/most sites do A/B testing and there is nothing inherently wrong with it,
so why would it be classified as spam?

~~~
bduerst
I think what they're trying to say is that sites that specifically test just
to garner clicks, as opposed to conversions & sales, could be deemed as being
"spammy".

In the content world, would you rather sites have good content or good
traffic? The trend seems to be that these two are not always correlated.

------
vgeek
So creating a BuzzFeed clone, a Grindr clone and a card game clone makes you a
king? The article fails to mention that Facebook is starting to crack down on
organic clickbaity content, which is were all of the viral sites likely get
90% of their traffic.

~~~
j_lev
I came expecting to read the story of Upworthy.

~~~
killwhitey
There was a Vice podcast episode with the founders of Upworthy. It's not
exactly an in-depth investigation, but interesting.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMbn4awPF1o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMbn4awPF1o)

------
brador
What is the viability of leaching their business model? I mean taking photos
and writing viral content with the intention they steal it and you can invoice
them for $$$ and sue if they don't pay.

Viable?

Extra: you could get in touch with the original authors, take a 50/50 on any
money you extract. One court case to set precedent and check viability of the
business model and the checks write themselves.

------
hristov
Can't wait to see this a-hole hit with a 10 billion dollar copyright
infringement suit. I am all for fair use, but what he is doing is not fair
use, it seems like outright copying.

If you are going to make money from cheap exploitative lists, at least try to
create your own.

------
numlocked
We appear to be through the looking glass:

"...Twirl, a gay version of the dating app Tinder. "

~~~
zcdziura
Which itself is the straight version of the dating app Grindr. Oh this circle
which we've come about...

------
webwanderings
Not going to upvote the media glorification of clickbait enterprises. They are
a waste of people's time and energy. They exist only for their own selves.

~~~
jaredmck
The media certainly is not glorifying this enterprise. I read the New Yorker
article as a massive, massive indictment of Spartz's business model.

~~~
relaytheurgency
Part of me thinks it was my own disgust in the model that made the New Yorker
article feel it was a negative take on the clickbait industry. That was an
ironic feeling, given the context. The portions of the story where it
discusses his family life, and the glorification of this person's
intelligence... they felt borderline satirical but probably only because I
want it to be pointed satire. The 22 year-old former Syracuse student, for
instance, quoting Uncle Ben rather than a more auspicious figure (Jesus,
Roosevelt) with the same basic quote... It just felt like the Twilight Zone.

I hope that this parasitic method of generating ad revenue with meaningless
content languishes rather than flourishes.

------
applecore
_> When he was growing up, Spartz said, his parents made him read “four short
biographies of successful people every single day. Imagine for a second what
happens to your brain when you’re twelve and this is how you’re spending your
time.”_

I'd be interested in seeing his list of recommended books. (It's difficult to
find good biographies that are also concise.)

~~~
bendoernberg
"On a weight-lifting bench, [Emerson's father] had arranged a two-foot stack
of the “short biographies of successful people” that I had heard about from
Emerson. They turned out to be extremely short: a single-sided page each,
photocopied from a newspaper called Investor’s Business Daily."

~~~
applecore
Oh. I sincerely thought that was a joke.

~~~
freshhawk
Who was making the joke? The reporter lying to make the subject look bad? The
subjects staging something to make themselves look bad?

I am very curious, I use that same journalistic technique in my writing. You
don't editorialize, you report the subjects statements and report the facts
and readers can see for themselves when the subject has said something foolish
or dishonest.

I'm a bit concerned that this isn't a good tactic to use. A major theme of
that article was the juxtaposition of the "Change the world", "He's a great
guy" statements of the subject and the actual actions being only concerned
with attention and money.

------
lazyeye
Emerson Spartz - one of the internets largest distributors of gunk

[http://leunig.com.au/images/cartoons/gunk.jpg](http://leunig.com.au/images/cartoons/gunk.jpg)

------
jbuzbee
Yeah the spammers call themselves geniuses and justify themselves as well. I
for one, avoid ever clicking on those links that say something like "You won't
believe what this guy's girlfriend did" or similar. Fool me once.. etc.
Eventually people will catch on.

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warcher
Man, I love the audacity of creating a content business that creates no
content, just repackages other people's research and tacks a new headline on
it.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's hilariously criminal and emblematic of
everything that's wrong with the internet's systematic dismantling of the
ability of content producers' ability to earn a living by doing the tedious,
expensive work of actually making _anything_ more complicated that cat memes.

LOL Nu york timez! I sold millions of dollars worth of ads on your original
reporting and, unsurprisingly, am earning a tidy profit because your copyright
means nothing online!

------
imgabe
This has really started bothering me lately. I'm actively blocking any site
that promises I won't believe what happens next, or any similarly clickbaity
headline. I've also unfollowed almost everything that isn't an actual human
being that I know. I have to say my facebook experience has improved
tremendously.

------
kbart
Those are example of people I wish die slowly and painfully, they are no
better than spammers.

------
lzimm
[http://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/2014/12/the-13-most-
infuriating-...](http://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/2014/12/the-13-most-infuriating-
quotes-from-the-new-yorkers-king-of-click-bait-profile/)

------
AndrewWarner
I did an interview with him on Mixergy about how he built his company.

Smart guy.

[http://mixergy.com/interviews/spartz-spartz-media-
interview/](http://mixergy.com/interviews/spartz-spartz-media-interview/)

~~~
paulsutter
A clickbait comment in an article on clickbait!

When you press play on the video of the interview, you get prompted for your
email address. If you're fool enough to do that (I was), next it tries to sell
you an expensive subscription.

~~~
swamp40
Andrew has done a ton of very interesting interviews with entrepreneurs.

But I'm sure he has bills to pay, like everyone else.

Did you get to see the interview, after listening to his commercial?

~~~
gohrt
The gauntlet of extremely sketchy looking solications, and providing
interviews in video format only, suggests that this product is aimed at the
... less savvy of consumers; not someone going to build an actual business.

(Why does he need my email to show me a video? He isn't even _offering_ to
email me anything at that point, so what could it be besades spam?)

~~~
icebraining
_providing interviews in video format only_

At least in my browser, that page contains both an audio version and a
transcription of the interview. Have you tried scrolling?

------
thewarrior
Just checked out Dose.com . It has no original content whatsoever.

