Oddly Together

I’m Adding Flow to the Blogging Stock

Today, I start an experiment here at Oddly Together that will take the blog off track a bit, but which could better build readership. “What?” You ask. “Joe, don’t you have another experiment going with comments turned off?” Yes, and that one ends next week. 

The experiment comes to answer a question: What is the best way to be the better blogger? I’ve got to make money writing at a time when writing is becoming a commodity service. Increasingly, journalists like me are becoming obsolete. The answer I seek may be to the wrong question; perhaps blogging isn’t the writing I or many people like me should pursue. But I am going to try.

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Blogging: Is Curation or Comments Better?

John Gruber has responded to my Saturday post at length: “I’ll Tell You What’s Fair.” John’s response is thoughtful and responsible, so much so I’m trying things his way. I challenged him to turn on comments at Daring Fireball, which clearly won’t happen soon, if ever. I don’t agree with all his reasons but see how he applies a writer’s mind to blogging. His writing is an artform.

John responds:

Comments, at least on popular websites, aren’t conversations. They’re cacophonous shouting matches. DF is a curated conversation, to be sure, but that’s the whole premise.

Curation, huh? John and some commenters to my “Be a Man” post insist that comments are unnecessary to the narrative and distract from it. I argued that comments add to the narrative. Fine, I’ll try it John’s way. Most Oddly Together comments are missing anyway, following a blog transition that broke the links (but which Disqus will in the future offer a tool to fix). As an experiment, as of today, I’ve removed the Disqus commenting system from this blog for two weeks. If I decide to permanently turn off comments, I’ll write a mea culpa post and apology to John Gruber.

However, I have just a few quips with his “What’s Fair” post: 

1) John asserts that a quote I attributed to Apple CEO Steve Jobs is paraphrased. Really? I linked to the New York Times. If the Times paraphrased, my apologies. I assumed the Times correctly quoted Steve Jobs.

2) John writes:

Used to be, back in the early days of DF, that those complaining about the lack of comments simply were under the impression that a site without comments was not truly a “weblog”. (My stock answer at the time: “OK, then it’s not a weblog.”) Typically these weren’t even complaints, per se, but rather simply queries: Why not?

Now that DF has achieved a modicum of popularity, however, what I tend to get instead aren’t queries or complaints about the lack of comments, but rather demands that I add them—demands from entitled people who see that I’ve built something very nice that draws much attention, and who believe they have a right to share in it.

Ouch! Was that a slap at me? John, I’m not acting “entitled” to anything. Nor could I or others asking for comments really get it; most major blogging systems use “no follow” tags to prevent link harvesting in comments—from commenters trying to take advantage of his or other bloggers’ success. 

I sincerely expressed that John and his readers would benefit from extended dialog (but I also asserted that no comments let him criticize without criticism). I wrote:

John denies his readers opportunity to better benefit from his writing. John is a good practitioner of stock-and-flow blogging. The flow are the many short posts, often with funny or biting commentary, linking to someone else. The stock is insightful analysis—John’s longer posts, and these would be good venues for discussion.

John Gruber is a unique blogger. He is a Mac enthusiast with a large Mac enthusiast following. It’s called the Mac community for a reason. I’m asking the “Why not?” allow comments question. John has answered well. Now I’m applying his answer as a personal test. No comments for 14 days, with focus on making my narrative stronger on its own.

3) John writes about success he has earned. I should point out that by not having comments and compelling people to respond elsewhere, John generates inbound links that he wouldn’t get from people commenting on Daring Fireball (presuming the blog or comment elsewhere, linking back to his posts). Inbound links are a valuable commodity in determining a blog’s value to advertisers and for search engine ranking. I wonder how comments would affect his traffic? Unfortunately, I’ve got no metric to answer the question.

4) In the “Be a Main” post I suggested that John look to Missouri School of Journalism’s Doreen Marchionni and her writings on “conversational journalism.” John responds: 

I happen to know Doreen personally, and agree that her advice is sage and her research insightful. But perhaps if Wilcox had read more than just the title of this brief piece of hers that he linked to, he’d have realized that the word “comment” does not appear anywhere in it.

Doreen has comments on her Tumblr blog. Tumblr doesn’t have a comment system. She presumably activated Disqus to engage readers, to extend the conversation. 

Finally, in answer to this post’s question: I dunno. I asserted comments improve the writer’s narrative, and John made a case for curation. I’ll report on my experience with both approaches sometime in July.

Do you have a blogging story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Be a Man, John Gruber

If John Gruber allowed comments on his blog, I wouldn’t need to write this post, and it has been long-time coming. I considered writing it every time I read something outrageous at Daring Fireball but couldn’t directly respond because John doesn’t allow comments. Finally, this morning, I had enough.

John’s post “John Battelle on Apple’s Banning Google From iOS App Ads” is what set me off. I wanted to comment—to correct the competitive marketing lies asserted by Apple CEO Steve Jobs that John repeated as fact. Since I can’t respond at Daring Fireball, I do so here. If I’m going to respond here, I might as well express something held back for some time: My disdain for the brutal effectiveness of John’s storyline—where he hits and jabs others with sarcasm and spit but isn’t man enough to receive jabs back. The story is incomplete, because only one side is presented. 

I thought to write this post at Betanews but didn’t want to be accused of gaming the pageviews. Also, because of the more personal nature of this post, I felt it inappropriate for BN. It’s only marginally appropriate for Oddly Together, which, at this point, is a storytelling site in the making. I want to shift away from technology being the story to technology telling the story. But John’s writing is storytelling (that’s a compliment), and I have made blogging and journalism ongoing topics here at Oddly Together. So there it is.

Which Bullshit is More BS?
Over the past two days, there has been some controversy about the newest revisions to the iPhone OS (now called iOS) developer agreement. It must be a lawyers died-and-gone-to-heaven-contract. How often is a contract between two parties changed, without notice, every few months (and it sure feels more often than that) by one side but not the other? On June 8, All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka observed that Section 3.3.9 of the developer agreement seems to block AdMob from Apple’s platform because Google has a competing operating system. A day later, John Battelle wrote: “It’s Official—Apple Kicking Google out of iWorld”; John Gruber linked to the post and responded:

Bullshit. Google started this. It was Google that turned its sights on the iPhone. If AdMob had remained independent, they could still sell in-app ads on iOS. If AdMob had sold itself to Apple instead of Google, they could still sell in-app ads on iOS. If Google hadn’t declared war against the iPhone, AdMob could still see in-app ads on iOS. They made their bed, now they have to sleep in it.

There’s no question it’s a dick move on Apple’s part. But what’s the argument against it? That Google gets a pass for being dicks to Apple, and Apple ought to just sit there and take it?

If Daring Fireball accepted comments, I would have responded to John’s fantasy land assertions about Apple and Google there. John mimics Steve Jobs, who in March told employees:  ”We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business.” Steve has since made similar assertion—that somehow Google encroached on Apple’s phone business. That’s simply not true.

Google bought Android in August 2005, about 18 months before Apple announced iPhone and nearly two years before the device shipped. Google effectively announced its intention to go into the mobile phone business when buying Android. Maybe Google’s intentions spoiled secret Apple plans, but there was nothing unclear about them. Responding to Google’s Android acquisition, in August 2005, IDC analyst Scott Ellison predicted: “Wireless is the next frontier in search.”

I was working as a JupiterResearch analyst at the time of the Android acquisition; there I repeatedly blogged about “anytime, anywhere, on-anything” computing. Computing and informational relevance was shifting from the PC to the cloud, with mobiles looking to eventually become the dominant devices. Mobile phones are personal and always with you—and, unlike personal computers, Microsoft doesn’t own the market (even in 2005, when Windows Mobile had more users and bigger marketshare). Google executives would have been hugely negligent by not pursuing wireless devices as the next opportunity for search. Google’s wireless device push started long before Steve stepped onto the Macworld stage in January 2007 and announced iPhone.

John’s Way or the Highway
It’s easy for John to revise history when there is no easy place to respond to him. Daring Fireball is his blog. It’s his voice. He is under no compulsion to offer anyone an easy mechanism for dialog or response. But his no-comments approach is out of place in an era when so many Websites or services provide discussion tools and encourage readers/viewers to use them.

I have to wonder why. Some reasons I see:

• From a storytelling perspective, John maintains a single voice, a single point of view, which helps keep the narrative cleaner and freer from distraction.
• As a writing style, John is freer to jab and punch pretty much anyone he chooses, which makes his wit and sarcasm more effective and even more enjoyable reading.
• The approach also means there is no direct way for those jabbed or punched to respond. Other folks can blog elsewhere as I am doing, but that’s separate from the narrative.
• John’s writing, beret of direct discussion or response, picks up more authority, establishing what some editors call the “God point of view” or “all-knowing point of view.”

John Gruber is not a journalist. He is a blogger and Mac enthusiast with a computing science degree. His posts are often biased in favor of Apple, and he makes no apology for this (that I’ve seen). He needn’t make one. Good writing is first and foremost about audience. John has identified an audience of like-minded Apple lovers, and he writes for them. There’s no rule all writing must be objective. He blogs about other topics, too, but clearly those that interest him. Good for him. John is a successful, self-supporting blogger, and there are too few success stories like his.

But there’s something about the no-commenting approach that irks me. John has whacked me and my writing a few times at Daring Fireball, but I couldn’t respond there. It was a one-sided argument with his supporter minons adding to the noise. (John has loyal followers; some of them are more than just readers, in part because they share the same passion. With no disrespect intended, I’ll call him mini Steve Jobs. Both men are cults of personality.) Then there are the many more posts like the one I respond to here, where I would want to add something to the discussion, whether agreeing or disagreeing with John. 

Something else: John denies his readers opportunity to better benefit from his writing. John is a good practitioner of stock-and-flow blogging. The flow are the many short posts, often with funny or biting commentary, linking to someone else. The stock is insightful analysis—John’s longer posts, and these would be good venues for discussion. Surely readers would like to react and to discuss. In July 2009, Missouri School of Journalism’s Doreen Marchionni wrote about the importance of “conversational journalism.” She offers good advice for John or anyone else writing professionally on the Web. By the way, Missouri’s J school requires Macs.

I allow comments at this blog, which in response to this post opens me to attack by John’s followers. The discussion battle will occur here, if there is one, but Daring Fireball will be free of any scorched earth. That’s the other advantage for John: His followers fan out in attack where others do allow comments. Should a comment battle occur here, for a time, the responses really will stand out. I recently migrated blogging platforms, changing links site wide. So most of the older comments are missing. Thirty days ago, I contacted Disqus and received e-mail: “We’re currently finishing up a tool to make this migration easily and I’ll make sure to let you know when it’s ready.” So hopefully sometime soon I can restore missing comments.

I’ve never met John Gruber. I only know him from his writing. I grew up in Northern Maine, where a man’s worth is his mettle. A man pushes out only as much as he can receive back. By comparison, I see John attacking from a fortified position. He can attack but not easily be assaulted, and, yes, many of his posts are attacks on others. Sarcasm and witticism are the ammunition. Maybe John has different values of what is a man. My values are clear. A man—hell, a good writer—doesn’t hide behind his assertions. He stands by them. Discussion and response test his assertions and expose him to more points of view. So I close with this challenge: Be a man, John Gruber, and allow comments at Daring Fireball.

[Update: John responded to this post on June 16: “I’ll Tell You What’s Fair.” I liked John’s response so much, I’m going to try blogging his way and turn off comments here for the next two weeks. John was a good man to respond. I’ve removed Disqus commenting and will see how the extended narrative works. I’ll report back on the experiment in two weeks.]

Photo Credit: Alex Hong

Do you have a John Gruber story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Let Your Stories Teach You How to Write Inviting Headlines

Marco Arment got me to thinking about headlines today. Let me start by apologizing to Marco for nearly copying his post in it’s entirety. I don’t normally do that. In post “My Bad Post Titles Are Getting Out Of Control And Are Inconvenient For Techmeme, Now”, he writes: 

At Least When Business Insider Copies My Articles Nearly In Their Entirety, They Write Their Own Sensational Titles To Replace Mine And Make Me Sound Much More Critical Of Apple Than My Posts Really Are, Every Single Time I Write Anything About Them.

Unquestionably, Business Insider writes compelling headlines, often around content it ah, borrows, from elsewhere. It’s parasitically symbiotic, when the aggregation tactic returns pageviews, although I strongly suspect the original site loses more than gains.

Late today, I looked over my headlines for Betanews, where I freelance, to see how effective they are as measured by pageviews. Counting pageviews is an inexact science because of Google News, which can drive huge amounts of traffic sometimes inexorably. There are lessons other bloggers or journalists can learn from my exercise, which they should imitate with their own posts. So here are some, but by no means all, of the bigger hitters, presented in no particular order of importance:

• “Should you dump Internet Explorer, NOW?” is my highest pageview-count story freelancing for Betanews, by a huge margin. Interestingly, the story racked up two-thirds of the pageviews on a Sunday. I’m convinced the all-caps “NOW” was a factor, coupled with the topic and timing (holiday weekend in the US). It’s exception to my observation that questions generally don’t drive pageviews.
• “The world doesn’t need an Apple tablet, or any other”: The pageviews were huge but still about half as many as the “dump IE” post. The headline is provocative and timing important, around rumors about the then unannounced iPad.
• “Why I chose Windows 7 over Snow Leopard (and you should, too)” This is my most successful headline for the long haul. The first few days’ pageviews were well above average, which is good. Better: The post has the longest tail, racking up good ongoing pageviews every day since.
• “Apple has gone too far”, which was follow-up to “Has Apple Gone Too Far?” The follow-up racked up 14 times more pageviews in the first two days. Consistently, question headlines disappoint.
• “Apple declares war on the entire PC industry” also racked up big pageviews—and comments, too. The headline intrigues because of the conflict.
• “Mac fanboys should get a life and some Windows 7 common sense” racked up great pageviews but did even better for reader comments. This is another example of a great conflict headline, but one that also baits and inflames Mac and Windows PC user passions.
• “Apple should sue Gizmodo over stolen iPhone prototype”: This was an aggressive and risky headline that delivered better-than-average pageviews. I debated about what to call the iPhone and opted for prototype because it added to the mystic of “stolen”.
• “Nearly half the money spent at US retail on desktop PCs goes to Apple”: Six months earlier I posted “Apple has 91% of market for $1,000+ PCs, says NPD” looking at unit shipments. Both stories initially did quite well. But the 91% post also has a long tail of pageviews; percentage headlines can be huge if done right. 
• “10 questions to ask before buying iPad”: Top-10 lists are hugely popular, but this one was cleverly written. Hey, sometimes I’m in the zone.
• “10 things Microsoft did wrong in 2009” was another successful top-10er. Interestingly, I did a Microsoft “right” list and right and wrong lists about Apple, too. The wrongs drew in more readers.
• “7 People who are returning their iPads” is classic. It was late-day, and I had written nothing. Then I read in RSS feeds that journalist Jeff Jarvis would return his iPad. I found six other people and posted about them all. The headline works in part because of timing (right after iPad’s launch) and there is the voyeur appeal. With so many blogs or news sites writing about great iPad sales, topic “buyer’s remorse” is compelling.

A number of posts I expected to do well, because of the headlines, drew lots of comments but not exceptional pageviews. I consider big-comment stories to be successful, as they’re a measure of reader interest and interaction. But pageviews pay. :( Examples:

• “My Windows 7 confession (and why you should confess, too)”: Apple and Mac fanboys rattled one another in comments. But for all their discussion, pageviews were good but not exceptional, as I expected.
• “Microsoft Office is obsolete” pulled reasonably good pageviews, but nowhere what I anticipated. By comparison, the post generated plenty of comments (and many of them calling me and idiot).
• “Will you buy an Apple iPad?”: Readers responded to the question in comments, but the pageviews disappointed. It’s another example of why question headlines are just OK.
• “Cops raid Gizmodo editor home—you don’t mess with Steve Jobs”: The post delivered pretty good pageviews, but nowhere what I expected. That said, the controversy racked up comments and good reader discussion.
• “Will iPad bomb or be the bomb?”: This post demonstrates the language risks when writing for a global audience. I think many readers didn’t understand what “the bomb” means. Still, there were plenty of comments.
• “Windows Phone 7 Series is a lost cause”: I expected huge pageviews from the provocative headline. They didn’t come, but, again, commenting was unusually high, particularly considering the modest pageviews.

Several patterns emerge from the headlines, which were written for a technology audience:

1. Apple is a hot topic right now. Almost any Apple story with provocative headline draws in readers, and links from other sites. 
2. Microsoft is a lukewarm topic right now. I made my name in tech news circles writing about Microsoft. More recently, my Microsoft posts do OK, but generally not nearly as well as those about Apple (unless there is Apple-Microsoft conflict).
3. Conflict and controversy sell. It’s an old adage in the news business that people love to read about conflict between party X and Y or Z. 
4. Top-10 lists are hugely popular. It’s one reason blogs and news sites are flooded with them.
5. Affirmative headlines are powerful. Some editors disdain taking a God-like omniscient position. But five of the 12 successful headlines above are affirmative, two telling readers what they “should” do. Most of the remaining headlines are affirmative statements of fact. Among the six pageview disappointments above, those with affirmative headlines generated the most comments.
6. Percentages generate clicks—now and for the future. Over many years of writing, I’ve observed that readers easily understand a provocative statistic, generating reads (and so pageviews). Statistic headlines can generate additional pageviews over a long time, in part driven by search engines. 
7. People want gossip and rumors. I presented no gossip headlines here, because I don’t write many rumor stories. But they can hugely draw-in readers. There’s always someone looking for the inside story, the backstory or the next story. Apple product rumors are good examples, as are scandals. Can you say Tiger Woods without thinking dangerous liaisons?

For any of my regular technology readers wondering why I write less about Microsoft and more about Apple, this post is your answer. For any blogger or journalist wondering how to write better headlines, start by repeating the exercise I have done here. Go back through your posts and look at pageview and comment numbers compared to headline types. Heck, use a spreadsheet, which I didn’t use here. I generally see patterns better intuitively.

By the way, the search engine optimization obsessed insist that the best headlines are keyword heavy. Bullshit. Headlines are hugely important for building audience, which for online isn’t so different from print. Keywords are important, but there are many other factors such as incoming links that affect search ranking. Where do those links come? People. Not algorithms. People who stopped to read the post, because something (could that be the headline) caught their attention. I’ll have more to share on that topic in a future post.

Photo Credit: Adam Bowie

Do you have a journalism story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.