6 ms·

Wouldn’t you agree that it’s really valuable to know if people actually read the article, how far and which parts?

austinheap 6y ago
No.
flemhans 6y ago
Are you kidding? No of course not. You as a reader would rather prefer that the publisher doesn’t spy on you. Would you feel comfortable reading a newspaper whilst the editor looked over your shoulder all the time ? You might want to do that as a paid testing panel but not voluntarily. If you wrote an article, and you’re mediocre or spammy, of course you’d get off on such metrics to please yourself, to get validation. Good writers would not care as much.
- hkai 6y ago
  It's like saying that as a McDonald's customer, you'd prefer they did not charge you for food and you could just get it for free, without having to follow the rules. In fact, McDonald's has a lot of anti features: having to wait in line, greasy food, having to pay for the food and inability to bring outside food and drinks. Businesses need to earn money and knowing their customers is part of this.
  - tingol 6y ago
    It's not like that at all.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    It would be like that if McDonald's started to put surveillance systems into their bags to learn about how you consume their burgers and fries once you've walked out of the restaurant. Knowing your customer is important. Knowing everything about your customer is intrusive.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    “Knowing your customer” is not equivalent to performing surveillance on your customers. People knew their customer for centuries before we could tell that a random unwitting user spent 1.6 minutes on the page and exactly where they put their mouse cursor while they were on it.
aloukissas 6y ago
No
jimmyswimmy 6y ago
No. I'll take an opposing viewpoint. It's not "really" valuable, it's marginally valuable. If your articles aren't yahoo-style clickbait, anything you'd do with that data would just make your future articles less authentic. Alternatively, is your collection and utilization of that information worth invading the privacy of your readers? The printed version of The Economist continues to deliver a fantastic product yet they have no idea how far into each article (or even the entire magazine) I get each week. They simply publish detailed, excellent articles which draw me back, week after week. Why should online articles be any different? An incisive author who has put in the effort to prepare a good, thoughtful article knows it is so before publishing. Or one can publish thoughtless, banal articles and collect lots of statistics on how long it takes your readers to figure out that the article is a waste of their time. Distinguishing between the two is precisely what we were taught throughout grade school.
- saaaaaam 6y ago
  You have absolutely nailed it. The cruft medium provides and calls insight is only valuable to people who want to work out how trick their audience into reading further in articles where they deliver no value.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  An interesting note on The Economist is that their digital and print verions are priced the same, despite the higher cost of printing and delivering the printed version. The ads in the print version is simply worth more compared to the digital version. I’m still not convinced that online ad tech adds nearly as much value as the tracking industry wants us to think. Sure, it’s useful to know if you reader can afford the product wish to promote, but The Economist actually knows roughly what you income is, based on your shipping adress alone, while geo-location online still consistantly place me in the most expensive city in Denmark, but I live in an area where income is average at best.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
Not at all. Why would that be valuable to me as a reader?
ssss11 6y ago
Do whats best for the user. Does the user want that? No.
saaaaaam 6y ago
One of the things I do is run a small B2B publishing company. We turn over a modest six figure dollar amount each year with a tiny tiny team. We are recognised as one of the leaders in our niche. The thing that matters to us is whether we create great content, not whether someone stopped reading at 54% of the way through a particular article. Our audience appreciates that our content is authentic, informed and honest. And I don’t mean “authentic” like social media types mean when they say things like “always strive to be authentic!” When you start telling editorial staff to write differently because the stats say something about one particular article you are in a race to the bottom. Medium is an awful platform that rewards badly written click bait targeting stupid people. It’s a blight on the face of the web.

No.

Are you kidding? No of course not. You as a reader would rather prefer that the publisher doesn’t spy on you. Would you feel comfortable reading a newspaper whilst the editor looked over your shoulder all the time ? You might want to do that as a paid testing panel but not voluntarily. If you wrote an article, and you’re mediocre or spammy, of course you’d get off on such metrics to please yourself, to get validation. Good writers would not care as much.

hkai 6y ago
It's like saying that as a McDonald's customer, you'd prefer they did not charge you for food and you could just get it for free, without having to follow the rules. In fact, McDonald's has a lot of anti features: having to wait in line, greasy food, having to pay for the food and inability to bring outside food and drinks. Businesses need to earn money and knowing their customers is part of this.
- tingol 6y ago
  It's not like that at all.
- luckylion 6y ago
  It would be like that if McDonald's started to put surveillance systems into their bags to learn about how you consume their burgers and fries once you've walked out of the restaurant. Knowing your customer is important. Knowing everything about your customer is intrusive.
- vertex-four 6y ago
  “Knowing your customer” is not equivalent to performing surveillance on your customers. People knew their customer for centuries before we could tell that a random unwitting user spent 1.6 minutes on the page and exactly where they put their mouse cursor while they were on it.

aloukissas 6y ago

jimmyswimmy 6y ago

No. I'll take an opposing viewpoint. It's not "really" valuable, it's marginally valuable. If your articles aren't yahoo-style clickbait, anything you'd do with that data would just make your future articles less authentic. Alternatively, is your collection and utilization of that information worth invading the privacy of your readers? The printed version of The Economist continues to deliver a fantastic product yet they have no idea how far into each article (or even the entire magazine) I get each week. They simply publish detailed, excellent articles which draw me back, week after week. Why should online articles be any different? An incisive author who has put in the effort to prepare a good, thoughtful article knows it is so before publishing. Or one can publish thoughtless, banal articles and collect lots of statistics on how long it takes your readers to figure out that the article is a waste of their time. Distinguishing between the two is precisely what we were taught throughout grade school.

saaaaaam 6y ago
You have absolutely nailed it. The cruft medium provides and calls insight is only valuable to people who want to work out how trick their audience into reading further in articles where they deliver no value.
mrweasel 6y ago
An interesting note on The Economist is that their digital and print verions are priced the same, despite the higher cost of printing and delivering the printed version. The ads in the print version is simply worth more compared to the digital version. I’m still not convinced that online ad tech adds nearly as much value as the tracking industry wants us to think. Sure, it’s useful to know if you reader can afford the product wish to promote, but The Economist actually knows roughly what you income is, based on your shipping adress alone, while geo-location online still consistantly place me in the most expensive city in Denmark, but I live in an area where income is average at best.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

Not at all. Why would that be valuable to me as a reader?

ssss11 6y ago

Do whats best for the user. Does the user want that? No.

saaaaaam 6y ago

One of the things I do is run a small B2B publishing company. We turn over a modest six figure dollar amount each year with a tiny tiny team. We are recognised as one of the leaders in our niche. The thing that matters to us is whether we create great content, not whether someone stopped reading at 54% of the way through a particular article. Our audience appreciates that our content is authentic, informed and honest. And I don’t mean “authentic” like social media types mean when they say things like “always strive to be authentic!” When you start telling editorial staff to write differently because the stats say something about one particular article you are in a race to the bottom. Medium is an awful platform that rewards badly written click bait targeting stupid people. It’s a blight on the face of the web.