New York Times vs. Digg - Strange New Media (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

New York Times vs. Digg - Strange New Media

[shnu]

Steve wrote, in his article: I think the preferred media of the future will learn to capitalize on the strengths of today’s old and new media by combining great content creation with great listening.

Steve, I'm interested in what listening strategies you find work for you. You've hinted that email doesn't really work for you anymore, and that you've stopped using RSS. Are the forums your main source of feedback?

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by shnu

Steve, I'm interested in what listening strategies you find work for you. You've hinted that email doesn't really work for you anymore, and that you've stopped using RSS. Are the forums your main source of feedback?

Email, regular mail, the forums, writings on other blogs, conversations, and even traffic logs are all good sources of feedback.

The two main things I look for are:

1. Which topics do people care about most? Which topics generate the most feedback, the most searches, the most discussion? Where are people struggling?
2. Are my written ideas on those topics having an impact? What is the quality of the feedback and discussion? Is my work helping people grow and change, or am I missing the mark?

#1 helps me decide what topics to write about. #2 helps me figure out what to say about them and how to say it.

Sometimes I'll even pop down to the Las Vegas Strip (about 20 minutes away) and people-watch. You can get a lot of great ideas just by observing people for an hour or two. Do they seem happy or sad? Can you figure out why? What's their story?

IMO listening is conscious observation.

[shnu]

Steve, thanks, very informative.

[0tim]

One important benefit of being covered by the online versions of mainstream media outlets is the increase in PageRank. If a link to your site is included, you tap into a huge pool of unused link love, since those sites generally have a lot less outbound links than social bookmarking sites such as Digg do.

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

I liked this article, especially because you gave precise numbers which makes it very interesting.
I agree with you that the written newspapers have a declining influence overall. However I think it is difficult to compare newspapers (called old media in the article) and blogs/websites (new media) because they have different aims and are two completely different kind of media :

1) The main goals of written newspapers is informing while blogs have more specific topics.
Written newspapers inform on every topic, wether international news, cultural news, sport, weather, local news etc. .They are thus read by almost every kind of people, and the main goal of those who read them is to be informed, but generally not about a specific topic. So of course, referrals links from a very general media toward a specialised blog like stevepavlina.com aren't so efficient in generating traffic.

2)advertisement from a type of media to another doesn't work so well.
People reading a website are probably more enclined to read another website. That's why digg.com generates lots of traffic for another site like StevePavlina.com, because readers of websites naturally tend to like websites.
On the opposite, imagine digg.com advertising for a written newspaper, that might not be as efficient in generating new readers than it is for others websites.
But if a newspaper advertise for another newspaper, that might prove to be efficient. (although I have absolutely no proof for that, it is just a guess.)

My final point is about the oldest media, which I think is still the most efficient in terms of value for readers, content creation and influence (number of people reached) : BOOKS.
To me nothing is better than printed books, even if it is the oldest media of all (papyrus doesn't count). This is where I find the best and most serious content whatever the topic. I feel it is even more powerful than blogging, although it has its downsides (it is expensive). Who knows, maybe Steve Pavlina is going to be much more famous in the world once millions of copies of the book Personnal Developement For Smart People are sold.

[Dimitry]

Steve,

You mentioned that even though referrals from these sites gives you a nice amount of hits, the majority comes from word of mouth. What was your strategy then to generate word of mouth other than being mentioned on a whole bunch of other sites through which people will pass your links?

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Dimitry

You mentioned that even though referrals from these sites gives you a nice amount of hits, the majority comes from word of mouth. What was your strategy then to generate word of mouth other than being mentioned on a whole bunch of other sites through which people will pass your links?

Write articles that can genuinely help people. They'll share links with their friends, family, and co-workers because doing so is actually doing those people a favor. Getting a link on another blog is essentially the same principle at work -- bloggers will link to what they find valuable and worthwhile.

If people aren't telling others about a piece of content, it's probably because they don't consider it worthy of sharing.

If you want to create share-worthy content, make something that you'd refer people to if someone else had created it. If you wouldn't share it, don't be surprised when no one else does either.

[Lauxa]

I'm really interested in how this is going to play out in the election 2008. Online, Republican candidate Ron Paul is a major presence, winning most of the major polls, generating tons of traffic on Google and Technorati searches, and bringing people to meetup.com groups. Offline, the last Zogby phone poll showed him at 3% and the newscasters still dismiss him as a second-tier candidate.

For stevepavlina.com, all that's needed is web traffic, but lots of people vote who are not web savvy. It will be interesting to see to what extent all the internet buzz will influence the mainstream media and if a candidate can cross over from being popular online to real-world popularity as measured by polls and votes.

[John Wesley]

I hate to say it because I really like Ron Paul, but I don't think he has a chance. Although he's all over the internet, the net savvy population is a pathetic minority. 99% of the people who work on computers all day never get past the mainstream media outlets, not to mention the elderly etc. As long as big media can freeze out candidates like Paul and Gravel it doesn't matter how many times they make the front page of Digg. Maybe in 20 years things will be different. I hope so.

I found this article very interesting. I can only dream of the day when a front page Digg or mention in the NY Times hardly makes a ripple in my daily traffic.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Lauxa

Offline, the last Zogby phone poll showed him at 3% and the newscasters still dismiss him as a second-tier candidate.

A whole 3%? Isn't that about 3-6 times more then the usual Libertarian candidate polls at. Not bad then.

If he's dismissed as a second-tier candidate - that's also an improvement from being dissmissed as a third-tier candidate!

[Jonathan]

Whatever you think of the merits of social bookmarking sites etc., I just read an interesting point in Reddit's comment section for this post. Sure, more hits may come from one source that the other, but which actually provides more monetary income, or even repeat visitors. I'd tend to side with what one of the guys there says - print media folks are likely to be more interested that some random Digger.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Print media folks are likely to be more interested that some random Digger.

I've heard that theory many times before, but my own data suggests that the opposite is true. Online sources invariably convert better than offline ones.

[Jonathan]

Thanks for clearing that up Steve, surprising but very interesting!