Martin Weigert of Meshed Society recently made a good point about curation as the future of blogging. He writes that many bloggers have stopped making new stuff, instead “selecting and repackaging existing content.” Weigert continues, “Curation itself is nothing new and has been happening on Twitter and other platforms for many years. But I see signs that more creators have shifted their attention from writing content to curating content lately. Considering the huge quantities of great reading stuff that are published every day somewhere on the web, I think this is a good development.”
I have mixed feelings. Curation is certainly useful, and I appreciate being pointed in the direction of articles worth reading. I click so many links out of Twitter and add them to Instapaper. However, an exclusive focus on curation strikes me as… boring. I feel suspicious of anyone who would want to curate as their main “creative” activity. I’ve never loved Daring Fireball for that reason, and also because Apple fanboys are annoying. Same problem with Tumblr: the vast majority of users are tricking themselves into thinking that collecting images is making something. It’s not. I’m reminded of that horrible saying, “People who can’t do, teach.” My stance is, “People who can’t create, curate.” Creating is a lot of work, but ultimately it is more fruitful and rewarding that curating. In my experience.
I view responding—what I’m doing right now—as different from just saying, “Here, read this.” But, y’know, that said, here are eight of the good articles I read recently:
^^^ “Hunger games” by Will Wiles, an essay on survival-based video games, in which the drama comes from scarcity, from scrabbling to get by. I don’t play games and this was still fascinating.
^^^ David Ulevitch of OpenDNS explains why “Superfish had to happen”: “Internet security and online advertising are fundamentally incompatible. Full stop.”
A lot of “content creators” — the people who make the internet worthwhile — hate ad-blockers. I don’t. I am glad that ad-blockers exist, and I think they’re actually good for the future of “content” and editorial websites in general.
First let’s review the argument against ad-blockers. (Note that sketchy ad-blockers do exist, but assume I’m talking about normal ones like uBlock Origin.) Basically, ad-blockers stop display ads from loading. This means that websites can’t make any money from the visitors who use these browser extensions. (The idea that web ads only pay per click is a common misconception — most professional websites are paid per thousand views.)
Here’s what I think: Making money from advertising is not an inherently terrible plan. Making money from display ads is. Banner ads and noisy autoplay videos are not the only option! Dreaded paywalls are not the only alternative. (Besides, subscriptions won’t be sufficient unless you have a premium legacy brand like The New York Times, or niche appeal like Andrew Sullivan’s political commentary.) Here is an example of what a respectful ad looks like:
Please consider shopping through our Amazon affiliate link to support this website. We rely on readers like you to keep creating the [content type] that you love!
This is basically how fashion bloggers do it, although some of them are less obvious about disclosing their affiliate links. The techies may not have noticed, but fashion and lifestyle bloggers are doing well for themselves! You should be copying them. There are plenty of affiliate programs, and a website with a decent amount of traffic can probably make more money from this type of advertising than from display ads. (Granted, some of the protests were written years ago, so this may not have been true at the time.)
The other excellent idea is sponsored posts. Ars Technica contributor Kurt Mackey commented on the article that I linked above, “There are really two possibilities […]. The first is what we’re striving for: finding the least offensive level of advertising […] while keeping our overhead as low as we can. The second is scary and more malicious, and if Ars ever went this way I would no longer work here: disguising ads as content.” I agree, but sponsored posts don’t have to be disguised. All you need is a disclaimer. Example:
The following post is sponsored by [commercial entity]. Please consider doing business with the brands that support [website]. Thank you!
Readers have been duly informed, and they can scroll past if they don’t want to read an advertorial. Actually, the best type of sponsored post has that disclaimer at the top, and then normal content below that is vaguely related to the field of the sponsoring entity. Here is an example from a Medium article by Jason Harper, “In Defense of the Good Old-Fashioned Map”:
The disclaimer could be a little more explicit — “Sponsored by Marriott” would be better than “Presented by Marriott” — but in general this is well-executed. The visual experience is not annoying, I get to read something enjoyable, and I will associate my happy internet feelings with Marriott. Win-win-win for the creator, the advertiser, and the reader.
People who protest sponsored posts are generally concerned with objectivity. For instance, if you review a product that was sent to you for free, and the company is paying you to review it, can you offer an unbiased review of that product? Well, no, of course not. Presumably the people who worry about this are the same people who complain when news writers use personal pronouns.
What the critics don’t seem to realize is that objectivity is not a thing. It straight-up doesn’t exist. Literally every single person in the entire world is biased — deeply biased — in one way or another, because that is human nature. We’re irrational animals, not logical automatons. The important thing is to declare your biases, for example by disclaiming the sponsored nature of a blog post.
So why do I think ad-blocking will be good for the future of the internet? Because it will push websites to rely less on irritating ads, and implement user-friendly business models instead (which may include sensible advertising). Sure, plenty of websites will be unethical and not use disclaimers, but that’s why we have to be discerning, skeptical consumers, both of media and any products we choose to purchase.
Too long; didn’t read? Here’s my basic point: it is worthwhile to develop a revenue stream that doesn’t annoy your readers so much that they block the revenue stream altogether.
Update: I got bored with The Skimm and unsubscribed.
Disclaimer: The following post contains an affiliate link, although I’m not clear on what actually happens when people click it. Do I get money? Wouldn’t that be awesome? There was talk of a tote bag if ten people sign up through my link, but beyond that I don’t know the specifics. A tote bag! The glory of it!
Recently I subscribed to an email news service called The Skimm, because it was mentioned in a series of interviews by Melody Joy Kramer, in which people who don’t work in news comment on the news (to echo Kramer’s phrasing). One of the respondees recommended The Skimm. I was curious; I clicked; I conquered. (Assuming that your definition of “conquered” is extremely broad.)
Here is how The Skimm’s founders describe their venture: “News is not only our career, it’s our passion. Because of this, we have always been the go-to source for friends seeking the scoop on current events or breaking news. We soon realized three things: Reading the news is time consuming; Wanting to read the news is a hobby; lastly, not everyone has the time or interest.”
The Skimm team overviews current events, then summarizes the highlights into a humorous, easily digestible email. Lighthearted intros can feel awkward when the subject is human rights tragedies, but for the most part The Skimm is a great way to get a quick daily dose of information.
From a marketing perspective, The Skimm’s setup is really smart. There is a downside to serializing what is basically a blog as an email newsletter: old posts won’t continue to gather pageviews and improve your “Google juice”. However, the huge upside is that you don’t depend on anything outside of yourself for traffic.
Okay, it’s not quite that simple. Outside forces do influence how many new people sign up, but your main core of readers has already committed to you and provided valuable personal information. Furthermore, when gathering sponsors/advertisers, you can point out that email has really good stats.
Go ahead and check out the website if you’re interested—The Skimm has an open archive so you can look at recent emails and see if they are something you want in your inbox.
Geez, I’m tired. Working is hard! Every time my schedule gets more rigorous, I’m newly astounded that people manage to work full-time—or longer. There are industries where sixty-hour workweeks are common. Ugh, no thanks. (Not that anyone is begging me to join their tech startup, lol.)
Anyway, getting a gig with Bustle has put me in the weird position of having a weekend. Well, it’s weird for me. I haven’t had periodic two-day breaks since… high school. I am accustomed to working roughly three hours daily, instead of concentrating my efforts during a certain chunk of the week. Now my days off are Friday and Saturday. Accordingly, today I am lazing instead of furiously typing. Gotta take a break, right? I still feel absurdly guilty, like I always do when I don’t measure up to my own arbitrary standards of PRODUCTIVITY.
* “The outsider” by caustic British novelist Rachel Cusk, on joining a book club and finding it beneath her. Notable quote: “we learn to surrender the sense of our own importance, but the writer does not. He continues to pit his private world against everything, to fend it off.”
* “Scorched Earth, 2200AD” by Linda Marsa, a dystopic take on what will happen during the next couple of centuries as climate change continues unchecked.
* “J-School Confidential” by Michael Lewis, about how Columbia’s much-touted journalism program is an overblown mess. Good schadenfreude read, especially if you’re in media but lack the credentials.
I have vehement feelings about web design, especially since I read a lot of articles online. The overall principle is that simplicity trumps everything. Well, everything except functionality. I wanna be able to frickin’ do whatever I’m trying to do on the website!
Usually all I’m trying to do is read something. However, most online publishers don’t prioritize my ability to process the content they post. I find this astounding. Don’t they want me to derive value from their sites and feel motivated to return? Apparently not. It’s baffling.
Here is my rubric for judging a website:
Large font. Like, 16-point Times New Roman or larger. (Unfortunately, text is almost never big enough. Luckily I can fix the problem with Ctrl+.)
Black-on-white text. Any other combination is less readable. Pale grey text, even on a white background, is especially obnoxious.
Minimal visual clutter.Adblocking is a phenomenal help, but I do feel guilty about using it on websites that I want to support.
According to these rules, The Awl is a good website, but not a perfect one. Its sister site The Hairpin sucks. Medium is even better than The Awl. (I considered taking screenshots to document the websites’ current forms, but on the other hand, whatever.) The rest of the internet publishers range from “mediocre” to “I can’t believe this is a professional endeavor; shoot me”.
AND YET! THERE IS HOPE. I recently started using a service called Instapaper, which Ryan Holiday suggested in one of his articles. Instapaper exists as a website, Chrome extension, and phone app. The service enables you to save articles to read later and has an adaptable interface similar to the Kindle app. In their own words, “Instapaper is the simplest way to save and store articles for reading: offline, on-the-go, anytime, anywhere, perfectly formatted.” Usually a brand’s self-description is hyperbole, but not in this case. Instapaper is right on the money.
But wait, are they? Without running tons of ads, how can Instapaper be financially sustainable? The answer is Instapaper Premium, an upgrade that costs $29.99 per year, which I just bought. I don’t even want the expanded features, although I may use them now that I have them. What I want is to support technologies that make my life — in this case my media consumption — better.
Curious about the articles that I’ve been queueing up? Check out my Instapaper profile.
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