In Which, Finally, I Understand Facebook

What Facebook offers advertisers that other news organizations do not, says Gans, is a quality he calls magnetism – limited content of high value, frequently renewed. Few readers remain on the site for very long. But they return to it regularly: they are faithful. And this creates a proposition that advertisers may find compelling. If they want to reach a large fraction of the US population over the next few days, Facebook may be the way to do it. The alternative is to purchase multiple digital impressions in many media, hoping to find the right eyeballs.

Roughly speaking, this is what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has done. He has assembled readers in order to sell their attention to advertisers – it’s a classic two-sided market, just like a newspaper or a television show, except that before Facebook, Gans says, “No one had figured out how to sell ads while your friends and family were talking to you.”

yup.

(Source: azspot)

Here's Why You Need A Cast Iron Skillet | The Awl

yes, cast iron skillets are great.  if you own a kitchen, this is the first thing you should buy.  lots of famous, important and talented chefs will tell you this.  including david cho.  though not a chef, just a dude who gets it.

i’m mainly posting about why i think this form of advertising is, or maybe isn’t, working for hyundai.

what was my very first action after reading this post in google reader?  sharing it.  it’s a high-value post i agree with and i felt that any of my friends or strangers who follow me around on the internet would benefit from the information contained within.

second motive?  identifying with it.  i’m a caucasian male in his late 20s, living with my girlfriend in a metropolitan area and maintain a solid job in a major U.S. city - i’m a demographic, ya’ll!  i was raised very well by my mother who can cook circles around almost everyone i’ve ever met and who preached the value of something like a cast iron skillet that fell on my deaf ears during the years i lived in her basement.  i read this post and now that i actually listen to my mom, i think it’s cool and you should think i’m cool because i’m being responsible about my cookware.

with that baseline set, i shared the post quickly before reading it fully and seeing david’s disclosure about sponsorship.  it’s straightforward:  hyundai paid, awl wrote.  never the two shall meet.  as both a marketer in my professional life and a consumer in my personal (look how that works out), i respect that and commend it.  other publications?  try to follow that, please.

but wait, skillets and cars?  is that on-brand?  where is the messaging?  what’s our share of voice?  omg, will this tweet sell 5 million cars for us?  if you see where i’m going here and have (or will) read the post, there is no mention of hyundai (or even cars) until the disclosure.  the post itself is true and awesome.

here is where my curiosity kicked-in (and internal bastard marketer asshole personality) - “so where’s the value for hyundai?”  dun dun dun, i clicked-through:  lots of hyundai ads on the post.  i didn’t and likely won’t click on anything but, i sold my attention & impression to the awl and subsequently to mr. hyundai advertising guy (or gal).  please watch over it well.

okay, simple equation.  great content sponsored by a brand that, ideally, drives traffic to the awl where a reader sees fun display advertising.  what’s the least that can happen?  if this is something hyundai does on a consistent basis, maybe, they’ll be seen as cool kids who understand the value of important information.  they’ll get to latch on to the smallest sliver of my brain for however long they can hang on or some tweet pushes them out.  will it sell them cars?  no.  make awesome cars.  that’s what sells product the best:  better product.  but, with a need to do some display advertising - this was done well.  like your favorite combo meal.

what’s the best that can happen?  WATERFALLS OF CLICKS AND NO MORE ELANTRAS AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL PURCHASED.  come on now, that’s not a good A to B step and anyone who says that will happen:  they’re full of shit.

i don’t know what the awl promised hyundai in terms of results and i don’t know what hyundai is expecting in terms of results.  quite frankly, i don’t care.  wait, well, it’d be interesting to help prove my point (that this is effective) but, it really doesn’t matter.

god speed to david and his car friends, i hope all the right numbers fall from the sky.  i’m going to get lunch.

also, edit at 1:33pm - FULL TEXT RSS FEEDS.  USE THEM.  UNLESS YOU’RE LIKE GAWKER AND JUST SHIT THE BED WITH A NETWORK-WIDE REDESIGN AND, PREVIOUSLY, DEVALUED ALL STRONG/DEDICATED READERSHIP BY TRUNCATING FEEDS.  see what happened here?  i read a full-feed post, shared it on a “social network,” wrote a multiple-paragraph blog post about it that was shared on another “social network” and now i even went back to edit it again without getting lunch first.  WHERE IS MY CHECK I JUST MADE SOMEONE MONEY.

Putting a Price on Words

That’s precisely the problem: the sheer volume of words has overwhelmed a business model that was once based on scarcity and limited choice.

andrew does a great job of breaking down the business predicament surrounding digital journalism.  the greater publishing industry of yesterday didn’t understand the value of their content in relation to the new technology driving advertising’s evolution.  so, set that aside for a minute.

his piece goes on to imply that tomorrow will look just like we think it will look.  sites like gawker essentially playing “red rover” with revenue and profit until something shakes out and sticks.  the issue i have with all of this is that everyone, both traditional publishing & mr. denton, are showing their hand.  the majority of the revenue might sit within a common denominator of audience but what happens when we reach the point of scraping the bottom of a big barrel for 1/80th of a cent?  i don’t even want to imagine what kind of stuff you’ll be reading then.

denton is right, the delivery mechanism (“blog posts”) are a commodity - the money is made in building empires based on attention.  oh man, wait a minute, attention?  that - to me - is the golden ticket.  it’s the end game and is best captured not by vague click-through traps, rapid-fire posts within a 24hr period but by the stuff that sticks to the wall long after you’ve walked away from it.

the stuff that gets you to read the entire article, entice a desire to share publicly and even offer my own point of view on.  think about where you find stuff like that and who is producing it (more so, who is capable).  at the end of the day, you have to eat the food that is going to satisfy you the most and focusing on delivery mechanisms might keep you afloat for now, but what happens when someone does it better?

sustainability in our society’s intellectual culture isn’t built on the traps we set but instead the meals we make.  i’m convinced the day will come when people turn and walk back towards whence they came - the thirst not for “scarcity” or “limited choice” but a thirst for quality and concise editorial.