9 ms·

If it's bad for journalists and advertisers then it's good for users.

by george3383 9y ago

taurath 9y ago
“Journalists” being those making their money by being shared on Facebook are the least journalistic.
roywiggins 9y ago
It depends. Some people use Facebook "likes" as a crappy replacement for RSS, so it's probably not great for them.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  I can't be smug though. HN has become my replacement for RSS. Surely even Facebook is a better approximation.
- eckza 9y ago
  I was one of those people. It's... shocking, how much of that noise that you can get by without. To be fair, I'm missing out on a ton of news with regards to the community and culture that I used Facebook to participate in - but my life is measurably better in every other metric for having left the platform. Getting BMX racing news second-hand is a small price to pay for having my mind back. (Disclaimer: I spent 20+ hours per week on Facebook. It's mostly nice to have those 20+ hours back, and not having to be constantly bombarded by all the evil of this world is a huge plus, too.)
- freehunter 9y ago
  As someone who runs a business partly driven by people who use Facebook as a crappy replacement for RSS, I can confirm. Facebook made a change a while back where people who explicitly followed my page to keep up to date on local events and businesses suddenly were not seeing anything I posted. I had to start paying Facebook to keep them showing things to people, but even that is far slower than it had been. Out of about 2000 people following my page, I used to have around 1500 seeing my posts per week, now it's down to under 500. My readers are pretty upset, complaining to me that I don't post enough anymore and they're missing events they wanted to know about, but I can't make Facebook show them what Facebook doesn't want to show them. I tell the people to go directly to my website, but for a lot of them Facebook is the only website that exists. It's a small town without a newspaper or any other media outlets, so I'm still trying to figure out how to keep on going because I think it's a worthwhile service. Facebook doesn't make it easy anymore though.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    This, essentially, is Facebook's business model.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      Which isn't necessarily a bad thing... I pay to get access to my audience. I wish I only paid to get access to a new expanded audience, but I understand the reality of business. My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before.
      - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
        > My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. They're the product, so it doesn't matter if they get what they want or not, so long as they come back. > Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before. If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more?
        freehunter 9y ago
        >If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more? Well the way products usually work is the company says "pay me this amount and here is what you'll get". The way Facebook works is "Pay me... no, a bit more. Maybe a bit more. No, there's no guarantee of what you'll get in return. Don't like it? Pay a bit more then." The relationship between content creators and Facebook is a partnership. Facebook wouldn't be worth anything without users, and users would have a smaller audience without Facebook. The last thing you want is for that to tip too far in one direction. Have you ever used Facebook ads? They're not exactly straightforward, and there's no "pay this amount to reach everyone who says they want to read your content". You can excuse their exploitative business model all you want, but it only works until there's a viable alternative.
untog 9y ago
There's a meaningful difference between journalists and advertisers. I know it's fashionable to bash "the media" but I wouldn't want to live in a world without journalism. Advertising I could take or leave.
- pjkundert 9y ago
  We’ve lived in a world without “journalism” for, I would guess, decades? The internet is slowly giving us the option of journalism back, but it’s going to take time to reanimate that corpse.
- RickS 9y ago
  > There's a meaningful difference between journalists and advertisers. In the dictionary, sure. In reality, for as long as advertisers are how journalists get paid, that difference is whittling towards nil.
  - untog 9y ago
    That's pretty obviously not true. I didn't see advertisers covering the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Harvey Weinstein or tax reform, to pick just three things from the last year.
    - chiefalchemist 9y ago
      Um. Not really. The media covers that which gets clicks / eyeballs. That gets turned into revenue via advertisers. When you gather news from enough sources you start to see patterns in what gets a lot of attention, and what doesn't. Long to short, you're naive if you don't think there's a straight line been the mainstrean news media and advertisers. Note: The mainstream news media should also not be confused with journalism. The reasons are obvious.
    - RickS 9y ago
      I am not saying "journalists only cover what advertisers will cover". I am saying "journalist's standards are increasingly coming second to the generation of advertising revenue". Once-reptutable media empires embed Outbrain widgets and generate fad-focused, celebrity-focused clickbait garbage because it makes them money. They are not doing this for Journalism's sake. They are doing it for revenue from advertisers. I understand that this is an ancient phenomenon (PG's "suits back in style" essay comes to mind), but I have observed the scale and shallowness of the phenomenon worsening as the coffers get lighter at the news orgs. For that reason, I am arguing that the "meaningfulness" of the difference between advertisers and journalists appears to be waning.
abritinthebay 9y ago
It's only bad for media companies who use pretty awful tactics to get eyeballs. The trick is really to stop worrying about clicks to your site and focus on good content that people will engage with (share, comment, like, whatever). If it's good content people respond well to it and will seek out your brand. You see the same thing with the savvy companies on Instagram/Snapchat/etc It's only bad if you're essentially a click-bait factory.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Facebook has a metric they use to determine if they're going to show people your post, and it has to do with the first few people who see it. If they see it and don't interact with it, it disappears and no one else will see it. That really reinforces clickbait, but it also makes sure that you absolutely need those first few impressions to really count. Good content doesn't matter if the algorithm keeps it hidden.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    That's... an incredible over-simplification of their algorithms. To the point of ridiculousness.
- crorella 9y ago
  THIS ^ If you are good generating good quality content that engages in a meaningful way, then you have nothing to worry about.
scottmf 9y ago
These days I’m extremely skeptical of recently created accounts whose only comments are political and two of which bash journalists.

If it's bad for journalists and advertisers then it's good for users.

taurath 9y ago

“Journalists” being those making their money by being shared on Facebook are the least journalistic.

roywiggins 9y ago

It depends. Some people use Facebook "likes" as a crappy replacement for RSS, so it's probably not great for them.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
I can't be smug though. HN has become my replacement for RSS. Surely even Facebook is a better approximation.
eckza 9y ago
I was one of those people. It's... shocking, how much of that noise that you can get by without. To be fair, I'm missing out on a ton of news with regards to the community and culture that I used Facebook to participate in - but my life is measurably better in every other metric for having left the platform. Getting BMX racing news second-hand is a small price to pay for having my mind back. (Disclaimer: I spent 20+ hours per week on Facebook. It's mostly nice to have those 20+ hours back, and not having to be constantly bombarded by all the evil of this world is a huge plus, too.)
freehunter 9y ago
As someone who runs a business partly driven by people who use Facebook as a crappy replacement for RSS, I can confirm. Facebook made a change a while back where people who explicitly followed my page to keep up to date on local events and businesses suddenly were not seeing anything I posted. I had to start paying Facebook to keep them showing things to people, but even that is far slower than it had been. Out of about 2000 people following my page, I used to have around 1500 seeing my posts per week, now it's down to under 500. My readers are pretty upset, complaining to me that I don't post enough anymore and they're missing events they wanted to know about, but I can't make Facebook show them what Facebook doesn't want to show them. I tell the people to go directly to my website, but for a lot of them Facebook is the only website that exists. It's a small town without a newspaper or any other media outlets, so I'm still trying to figure out how to keep on going because I think it's a worthwhile service. Facebook doesn't make it easy anymore though.
- dboreham 9y ago
  This, essentially, is Facebook's business model.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Which isn't necessarily a bad thing... I pay to get access to my audience. I wish I only paid to get access to a new expanded audience, but I understand the reality of business. My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before.
    - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
      > My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. They're the product, so it doesn't matter if they get what they want or not, so long as they come back. > Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before. If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more?
      - freehunter 9y ago
        >If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more? Well the way products usually work is the company says "pay me this amount and here is what you'll get". The way Facebook works is "Pay me... no, a bit more. Maybe a bit more. No, there's no guarantee of what you'll get in return. Don't like it? Pay a bit more then." The relationship between content creators and Facebook is a partnership. Facebook wouldn't be worth anything without users, and users would have a smaller audience without Facebook. The last thing you want is for that to tip too far in one direction. Have you ever used Facebook ads? They're not exactly straightforward, and there's no "pay this amount to reach everyone who says they want to read your content". You can excuse their exploitative business model all you want, but it only works until there's a viable alternative.

untog 9y ago

There's a meaningful difference between journalists and advertisers. I know it's fashionable to bash "the media" but I wouldn't want to live in a world without journalism. Advertising I could take or leave.

pjkundert 9y ago
We’ve lived in a world without “journalism” for, I would guess, decades? The internet is slowly giving us the option of journalism back, but it’s going to take time to reanimate that corpse.
RickS 9y ago
> There's a meaningful difference between journalists and advertisers. In the dictionary, sure. In reality, for as long as advertisers are how journalists get paid, that difference is whittling towards nil.
- untog 9y ago
  That's pretty obviously not true. I didn't see advertisers covering the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Harvey Weinstein or tax reform, to pick just three things from the last year.
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    Um. Not really. The media covers that which gets clicks / eyeballs. That gets turned into revenue via advertisers. When you gather news from enough sources you start to see patterns in what gets a lot of attention, and what doesn't. Long to short, you're naive if you don't think there's a straight line been the mainstrean news media and advertisers. Note: The mainstream news media should also not be confused with journalism. The reasons are obvious.
  - RickS 9y ago
    I am not saying "journalists only cover what advertisers will cover". I am saying "journalist's standards are increasingly coming second to the generation of advertising revenue". Once-reptutable media empires embed Outbrain widgets and generate fad-focused, celebrity-focused clickbait garbage because it makes them money. They are not doing this for Journalism's sake. They are doing it for revenue from advertisers. I understand that this is an ancient phenomenon (PG's "suits back in style" essay comes to mind), but I have observed the scale and shallowness of the phenomenon worsening as the coffers get lighter at the news orgs. For that reason, I am arguing that the "meaningfulness" of the difference between advertisers and journalists appears to be waning.

abritinthebay 9y ago

It's only bad for media companies who use pretty awful tactics to get eyeballs. The trick is really to stop worrying about clicks to your site and focus on good content that people will engage with (share, comment, like, whatever). If it's good content people respond well to it and will seek out your brand. You see the same thing with the savvy companies on Instagram/Snapchat/etc It's only bad if you're essentially a click-bait factory.

freehunter 9y ago
Facebook has a metric they use to determine if they're going to show people your post, and it has to do with the first few people who see it. If they see it and don't interact with it, it disappears and no one else will see it. That really reinforces clickbait, but it also makes sure that you absolutely need those first few impressions to really count. Good content doesn't matter if the algorithm keeps it hidden.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  That's... an incredible over-simplification of their algorithms. To the point of ridiculousness.
crorella 9y ago
THIS ^ If you are good generating good quality content that engages in a meaningful way, then you have nothing to worry about.

scottmf 9y ago

These days I’m extremely skeptical of recently created accounts whose only comments are political and two of which bash journalists.