/Big Mouth/ No comment!
24/01/2008 | Filed under Discover > Big Mouth
The benefits of online comments are obvious – for the site owners at least. But do they really make things better for the rest of us?
A few weeks ago, the music reviewer from The Herald newspaper went to see My Chemical Romance and, quite rightly, said that they were rubbish. Within minutes of the review appearing online, fans of the band took a break from stabbing themselves with scissors and taking squinty pictures for their MySpace profiles and rushed to defend their idols. “No!” they howled. “They’re brilliant! YOU’RE RUBBISH!”
Just think. If the online editor hadn’t enabled comments, the human race would have been denied a crucial bit of information. My Chemical Romance aren’t rubbish. They are, in fact, brilliant. Thank you, internet!
The commenters didn’t just set the record straight, though. Every time they hit F5 to see one of their fellow fan’s comments, a little “kerching!” appeared in the newspaper’s server logs. If they clicked on an ad for Clearasil or razor blades, another “ker-ching!” sounded. And it’s not just teenagers causing ker-chings. It’s the pro- and anti-Israel camps on Comment Is Free, the religious types getting into flame wars with atheists whenever Richard Dawkins writes something, the quacks and the PS3 fanboys and the oh-so-interesting people whose choice of operating system is superior to your choice of operating system. Every single one of them is shaping the media of the future. I fear the worst.
Looking for action
In print, the blatantly populist stuff finances the more worthy, niche stuff (next issue’s cover feature is “Paris Hilton does PHP in her pants” to attract the FHM crowd, but we hope they’ll stay to learn a bit of ActionScript). As long as the overall package sells, everybody’s happy. Once you move online, though, things get more interesting – and for magazine junkies like me who spend daft sums on a monthly print fix, more worrying. Metrics mean you can see the readership not just of an entire title, but of each individual component of that title. And if the webmaster can see it, the advertisers will want to see it.
To see where all this is heading, look at the way online advertising has changed over the years. At first, advertisers paid per thousand banner views. Then, they paid per click. Now, they pay per action – per sign-up, say, or per sale. In the past, advertisers knew that 50 per cent of their budgets was wasted, but they didn’t know which 50 per cent. Now they do.
Advertisers are in the numbers business, not the content business, and the more hits you get the more clicks, sales and sign-ups you’re likely to get. That means Colleen McLoughlin is a better writer than Kurt Vonnegut, and a tutorial that makes your life easier and your clients happier is less important than blatant Digg-bait such as “732 reasons why Ubuntu users should be kicked in the nuts harder than anybody has ever been kicked in the nuts before”.
As the net moves to an ad-funded business model, the democratisation of media means that ker-ching, not content, is king. Some people say it’s brilliant. It isn’t. It’s rubbish.
Gary was writing for .net in the Stone Age. He’s a journo and software expert. www.bigmouthstrikesagain.com
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Comments
Bradley Robb / 25/01/2008 / 02:16 / http://Bradleyrobb.net
Oh sure, rain on the parade.
This is just a furthering of the infotainment craze that has swept the media stateside. Where it might have angered the few who flicked the tube on to catch the actual news, most were more than willing to talk divorce and who happened to go out sans panties.
I wouldn't blame the commenters (or should that be commentators?) as your title seems to suggest. I believe the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the readers who provide the demand that the advertisers seek to supply, and the content providers for following the proverbial carrot.
Peter / 25/01/2008 / 16:55 / http://www.consciousentities.com
No! Advertiser-driven content is brilliant! YOU'RE RUBBISH!
Lbug / 26/01/2008 / 22:46 / http://lbug.co.uk
Sad but true. But the same can be said of novels, TV and film. I'm sure Jordan's book outsold most Bookers and Nobel Prize winners.
Gary / 31/01/2008 / 14:47
Peter: thanks for making me spit coffee.
Bradley: I agree, it's infotainment. I think what makes it particularly obvious online is the degree of precision involved, though. It's not just a case of skateboarding dogs getting better ratings than political news; it's that advertisers can now tell which *breeds* of skateboarding dogs are best. I've had big debates about this elsewhere and there are three bright spots, really: the first is public service broadcasting, the second is proprietors' egos (ie, owning a loss-making heavyweight because it makes them feel good), and the third is that of course, brainy people are a group that advertisers want to target so quality of clicks, not quantity, will matter to them. Then again, how do you push ads to Firefox-using, adblock-installing, bullshit-detector-working types?
Ami / 05/02/2008 / 21:26 / http://www.affiliatemarketingintro.com
Where do I start?
The objective off online marketing is REPEAT visitors. Yes you can write a really hyped headline in the book marking sites that gets your site's link clicked. But once they get there and find poor or no content they are not likely to come back. The purpose of great content is really to give your visitors some value for their time, that way they keep coming back.
On the bad comments issue, unfortunately it is true, no news is bad news when it comes to marketing. The amount of traffic that web site got from that single post, and the bonus content generated by comments must have generated a fair amount of income.
Gary / 18/02/2008 / 23:41
Ami, that's an excellent point.
R.J. / 29/03/2008 / 06:56 / http://linkbuildingbible.com
Comments are needed. How many times have I yelled at the T.V. because of something stupid (think: refs in a football game)? How many times have I gotten happy because my favorite person wasn't voted off of my favorite reality show? that is a medium that I really can't express myself good or bad. Online comments are, and they are a very important part of online media.
Taking it a bit further, sites like Threadless use "crowd sourcing" to create their products, and since people are invested in the creation/voting process, they are more likely to buy which means more "ker-ching."
