Tokyo and tech through the eyes of a split pea

Eric Alterman: “The death and life of the American newspaper”

The always enriching New Yorker has a fascinating article in the March 31st issue by Eric Alterman, titled “Out Of Print: The death and life of the American newspaper“. While covering the trials and tribulations of the current newspaper / print-media industry and “that sucking sound” caused by the Internet, one snippet stood out because it relates somewhat to the web-services projects we’ve been working on. Alterman starts by introducing the Huffington Post and the success it has had in discovering “… a formula that capitalized on the problems confronting newspapers in the Internet era,” then shares part of their strategy:

The Huffington Post’s editorial processes are based on what Peretti has named the “mullet strategy.” (“Business up front, party in the back” is how his trend-spotting site BuzzFeed glosses it.) “User-generated content is all the rage, but most of it totally sucks,” Peretti says. The mullet strategy invites users to “argue and vent on the secondary pages, but professional editors keep the front page looking sharp. The mullet strategy is here to stay, because the best way for Web companies to increase traffic is to let users have control, but the best way to sell advertising is a slick, pretty front page where corporate sponsors can admire their brands.”

For those who’ve been in this “space” before, this is nothing new but is too easy to forget. A little PR and email-spam gets the “party in the back” kicking the tires. But with tight budgets and resource constraints, rich editorial content – the “slick, pretty front page” – is often neglected, and what’s more, it’s often a challenge to measure the effect such content has on visitor traffic. Rich content creates organic growth – a rate few in the online industry seem to have the patience for. Other user-generated content sites, most notably Youtube, may seem like exceptions but are in fact strong cases for the point – after all, it was the “professionally produced” SNL-skit video that is generally excepted to have propelled Youtube into a $1.6 billion basket.

Just something to think about as we continue to create online services.