4 ms·

Curious how clickbaiting works now. Taking the articles title "This Ikea Bowl has been setting things on fire", the "This" is an interesting word choice that is

Curious how clickbaiting works now. Taking the articles title "This Ikea Bowl has been setting things on fire", the "This" is an interesting word choice that is a great reminder of the "You won't believe THIS simple trick to..." that started the whole craze. I'd be curious to see some A/B testing on semi-baiting titles vs something more descriptive like the original source 'Ikea investigates after 'bowl sets Swede's grapes on fire'

beager 9y ago
Clickbait purveyors are certainly conducting large-scale A/B testing on their content as it's presented and shared. You even see it on twitter where journos will post ten stings for the same article and wait for one to win out. It's bizarre.
jasonkostempski 9y ago
I thought the title meant Ikea was disrupting the bowl industry.
- garyfirestorm 9y ago
  you win man!
- zhte415 9y ago
  IKEA disrupting the bowl industry. The global, quite conservative, retailer of everyday products has been disrupting the bowl industry for several decades. For years since disrupt was far from being the buzzword de jure, and was more associated with Klingon Battlecruisers.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    I wish that Ikea would disrupt the automotive industry and start selling these: http://oxgvt.com/the-ox-all-terrain-vehicle/ http://oxgvt.com/the-ox-all-terrain-vehicle/ I would so love to build and own one - sadly, I don't think I'll ever be able to, because they likely won't be sold to regular consumers here in the US. Even as a flat-pack kit, I think regulators would figure out a way to keep them out of the market due to crash-testing compliance and/or pollution control/EPA issues. So if I ever wanted to have something like one, I would have to homebrew it myself. I know it is possible to get such a vehicle legally registered, but it probably isn't super-easy, unless I start with a donor vehicle frame.
hammock 9y ago
Simply your argument by just replacing the pronoun with an article. "An Ikea bowl has been setting things on fire." The pronoun "this" references something inside the link that you can't yet see, pulling you into it (baiting a click). In contrast, the article "an" is informative without being seductive. Edit: mod just changed "this" to "an." Your a/b test is on :)
TorKlingberg 9y ago
Every time I see a link from atlasobscura.com, it seems to be click baity. Some kind of high brow clickbait, but still clickbait recycled from around the internet.
elliottcarlson 9y ago
Where is the line between clickbait and attention grabbing headline. In the case of "You won't believe THIS simple trick to..." I'd definitely call it clickbait - but in this instance, the title reflects exactly what the article is about, and while the modified title on HN does a far better representation of the contents, I personally don't see the harm in how Atlas Obscura worded the title. Or maybe I am just really susceptible to clickbait titles...
- burkaman 9y ago
  This is a very minor example, but compare the title to just "Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire". The word "this" naturally prompts the response "which one?", just like something saying "look at this" in real life. Again it's very minor, but the extra word adds nothing except a slight suggestion that this particular example is especially interesting and you should click to see it. Compare "Florida Man Escapes Prison" to "This Florida Man Escaped Prison". You'd scroll past the first, but you might not scroll past the second, because it seems like there must be something particularly interesting about this florida man, so you might as well take a second to click and see the picture.
  - ptaipale 9y ago
    Yes, except that "This" in a title is a definite turn-off for me, and a sure way to make me avoid clicking. So sick of baiting.
    - netsharc 9y ago
      Reddit has a bot that summarizes articles. A browser extension that replaces each Buzz! Feed! Headline! with such a summary would be an interesting programming exercise. Or maybe not Buzzfeed, since even the summary will cause brain cancer.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    This pronoun makes your headlines attention getting, with one weird trick!
ksk 9y ago
Well, pretty much all headlines here are click-bait. In the common case, the scope the article actually applies to, is blown out of proportion. I think its because we're hardwired to ignore one-offs. "One person used a curved metallic bowl to cause a fire" sounds kinda boring. Another one thats on the front page - "How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists" is actually "A serious of unverified tips that might help you become somewhat familiar with a limited subset of scientific papers whose jargon you should already familiar with" Scientific papers are written for other scientists, no "guide" is going to allow a layperson, who is completely unfamilar with the topic, in understanding the paper. If you are not a physicist you simply can't grok the theory of the alternating-gradient synchotron. You might become kinda-sorta-familiar in a wikipedia sense by looking up each term and reading the paper but you're never going to be able to field questions on the topic (usually possible only for someone who understands a topic).

beager 9y ago

Clickbait purveyors are certainly conducting large-scale A/B testing on their content as it's presented and shared. You even see it on twitter where journos will post ten stings for the same article and wait for one to win out. It's bizarre.

jasonkostempski 9y ago

I thought the title meant Ikea was disrupting the bowl industry.

garyfirestorm 9y ago
you win man!
zhte415 9y ago
IKEA disrupting the bowl industry. The global, quite conservative, retailer of everyday products has been disrupting the bowl industry for several decades. For years since disrupt was far from being the buzzword de jure, and was more associated with Klingon Battlecruisers.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  I wish that Ikea would disrupt the automotive industry and start selling these: http://oxgvt.com/the-ox-all-terrain-vehicle/ http://oxgvt.com/the-ox-all-terrain-vehicle/ I would so love to build and own one - sadly, I don't think I'll ever be able to, because they likely won't be sold to regular consumers here in the US. Even as a flat-pack kit, I think regulators would figure out a way to keep them out of the market due to crash-testing compliance and/or pollution control/EPA issues. So if I ever wanted to have something like one, I would have to homebrew it myself. I know it is possible to get such a vehicle legally registered, but it probably isn't super-easy, unless I start with a donor vehicle frame.

hammock 9y ago

Simply your argument by just replacing the pronoun with an article. "An Ikea bowl has been setting things on fire." The pronoun "this" references something inside the link that you can't yet see, pulling you into it (baiting a click). In contrast, the article "an" is informative without being seductive. Edit: mod just changed "this" to "an." Your a/b test is on :)

TorKlingberg 9y ago

Every time I see a link from atlasobscura.com, it seems to be click baity. Some kind of high brow clickbait, but still clickbait recycled from around the internet.

elliottcarlson 9y ago

Where is the line between clickbait and attention grabbing headline. In the case of "You won't believe THIS simple trick to..." I'd definitely call it clickbait - but in this instance, the title reflects exactly what the article is about, and while the modified title on HN does a far better representation of the contents, I personally don't see the harm in how Atlas Obscura worded the title. Or maybe I am just really susceptible to clickbait titles...

burkaman 9y ago
This is a very minor example, but compare the title to just "Ikea Bowl Has Been Setting Things on Fire". The word "this" naturally prompts the response "which one?", just like something saying "look at this" in real life. Again it's very minor, but the extra word adds nothing except a slight suggestion that this particular example is especially interesting and you should click to see it. Compare "Florida Man Escapes Prison" to "This Florida Man Escaped Prison". You'd scroll past the first, but you might not scroll past the second, because it seems like there must be something particularly interesting about this florida man, so you might as well take a second to click and see the picture.
- ptaipale 9y ago
  Yes, except that "This" in a title is a definite turn-off for me, and a sure way to make me avoid clicking. So sick of baiting.
  - netsharc 9y ago
    Reddit has a bot that summarizes articles. A browser extension that replaces each Buzz! Feed! Headline! with such a summary would be an interesting programming exercise. Or maybe not Buzzfeed, since even the summary will cause brain cancer.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  This pronoun makes your headlines attention getting, with one weird trick!

ksk 9y ago

Well, pretty much all headlines here are click-bait. In the common case, the scope the article actually applies to, is blown out of proportion. I think its because we're hardwired to ignore one-offs. "One person used a curved metallic bowl to cause a fire" sounds kinda boring. Another one thats on the front page - "How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists" is actually "A serious of unverified tips that might help you become somewhat familiar with a limited subset of scientific papers whose jargon you should already familiar with" Scientific papers are written for other scientists, no "guide" is going to allow a layperson, who is completely unfamilar with the topic, in understanding the paper. If you are not a physicist you simply can't grok the theory of the alternating-gradient synchotron. You might become kinda-sorta-familiar in a wikipedia sense by looking up each term and reading the paper but you're never going to be able to field questions on the topic (usually possible only for someone who understands a topic).