

Using A/B testing to find story ideas - danso
http://www.andymboyle.com/2011/10/28/using-ab-testing-to-find-story-ideas/

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danso
So basically an in-house, impromptu trend analyzer a la Demand Media?

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rwolf
Please do not do this. Everyone has a tendency to write about whatever's in
the news today anyway--we will spot your over-topical posts a mile off.

Have an interesting point of view, or some experience your audience lacks. Be
helpful, be opinionated. If you don't care about the topic why should we?

This is the second article on the homepage to mention adcenter, which I had
not heard of until today. HN reader/writers: I'd be interested in an adwords
comparison that did not boil down to "less eyeballs, cheaper."

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andymboyle
I guess I'm confused as to what you're disappointed about. My audience is
mostly for newspaper/media folk, and I tend to try and bring ideas from the
web development world to them. So that's what I did with this quick post.

I'm not sure how I don't care about the topic, as I did write about it and
offered ideas for how newsrooms could use this.

I hadn't heard of adCenter until today, either. But I thought it worthwhile to
mention a tool that isn't Google for once.

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jfruh
The point is that article that newspaper folk produce using this method will
essentially be along the lines of the Google-chasing Demand Media content farm
stuff. Give people exactly what they're looking for at the top of their mind
and a lot of important reporting goes away.

It's not your article he's complaining about, it's the articles that your
article encourages people to write.

