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Hmm... yeah, you're right. They're filtering out customers like me. That means the intent of the site is not the site content, but the mailing list they can gen

Hmm... yeah, you're right. They're filtering out customers like me. That means the intent of the site is not the site content, but the mailing list they can generate by dangling that content via a link, eh?

theshadowknows 8y ago
If they’re any good then it’s both. You should have a content team that works toward the goal of making great content for your audience, an analytics team that helps you figure out exactly who your audience is and what they like, and a CRM team that works to execute on that vision to maximize value for both the customer and the org.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Except when you separate out optimizing value for your audience from optimizing value for your org, the former becomes a cost centre, if not plain waste of money. At some point, someone is bound to ask, why waste money with a person passionate about the topic, when someone who doesn't care could write 2x - 10x the volume of content? Or put in other way, there are very few orgs that are "good" in the sense you describe. There are so few of them, that myself - and many others - treat monetization steps as a negative signal. Personally, I put that as a heuristic for on-line content - the harder a site tries to make money off you, the less trustworthy and useful it is.
  - theshadowknows 8y ago
    Yeah I can see that point. Like Daring Fireball, Gruber just has the single ad off to the side.
Godel_unicode 8y ago
Why can't it be both? Odds are if the content is good, someone who cares created it. More than one thing can be true.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  In my experience, those two are inversely correlated. The best content tends to be one that's not monetized in any way, and the more effort into monetization is visible, the more likely the content will be shallow, or bullshit. Not a law of physics. Just a heuristic I picked up over the last two decades on the Internet.

theshadowknows 8y ago

If they’re any good then it’s both. You should have a content team that works toward the goal of making great content for your audience, an analytics team that helps you figure out exactly who your audience is and what they like, and a CRM team that works to execute on that vision to maximize value for both the customer and the org.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Except when you separate out optimizing value for your audience from optimizing value for your org, the former becomes a cost centre, if not plain waste of money. At some point, someone is bound to ask, why waste money with a person passionate about the topic, when someone who doesn't care could write 2x - 10x the volume of content? Or put in other way, there are very few orgs that are "good" in the sense you describe. There are so few of them, that myself - and many others - treat monetization steps as a negative signal. Personally, I put that as a heuristic for on-line content - the harder a site tries to make money off you, the less trustworthy and useful it is.
- theshadowknows 8y ago
  Yeah I can see that point. Like Daring Fireball, Gruber just has the single ad off to the side.

Godel_unicode 8y ago

Why can't it be both? Odds are if the content is good, someone who cares created it. More than one thing can be true.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
In my experience, those two are inversely correlated. The best content tends to be one that's not monetized in any way, and the more effort into monetization is visible, the more likely the content will be shallow, or bullshit. Not a law of physics. Just a heuristic I picked up over the last two decades on the Internet.