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The nut of why they're doing it (and relevant to sites like HN as well): [C]licking on stories merely to discover what they're about is a frustrating chore. Un
by gojomo 13y ago
The nut of why they're doing it (and relevant to sites like HN as well):
[C]licking on stories merely to discover what they're about is a frustrating chore. Unlike most other news sites, we'd rather save our readers clicks than force them through a maze of pages to catch up on news. Techmeme therefore values headlines rich on specifics: headlines with names, numbers, and active verbs. Headlines that function as abstracts.
Unfortunately for us, publishers understandably write headlines suiting their own needs, and not necessarily ours. The reasons for this are numerous, and varied:
[…useful list of original-headline problems elided…]
As a result, Techmeme is often forced either to post a story with a nebulous headline, wait for a publication that rewrites the news with a clear headline (leading many publishers to wonder why) or pass on stories altogether. Since all of these choices are far from ideal, we've now resolved to produce Techmeme-optimized titles "in-house".
I'd love to see an HN/Reddit-like site that, just as it has a never-ending tournament for story ranking, has a mini-tournament on each story for the most informative headline.
- devindotcom 13y agoWhy stop at a headline? Why not a /.-like summary or quote that represents the article? Headlines are made for enticing clicks, not informing the reader.
- bb09 13y agoHave you checked out http://thetechblock.com http://thetechblock.com recently? I like what they're doing.
- gojomo 13y agoI'd agree, another subhed-line or even short blurb could be added to the collaborative-tournament process.
- ulisesrmzroche 13y agoThe headlines purpose is to inform the reader so they will be enticed to read more. If it doesn't do this, it's a badly written headline, it doesn't need to be patched, but re-written right.
- gojomo 13y agoEnticement is a goal of providers with certain models. Readers want an accurate indication of whether the target contains new and useful information. These goals can often conflict. Techmeme is more aligned with the readers, here.
- abracar 13y agoNot always easy to find the right balance - put all the info in the headline, and you'll get more RTs than clicks; but teasing can also go too far - @HuffPoSpoilers always cracks me up!
- untog 13y agohas a mini-tournament on each story for the most informative headline. Sometimes it seems like HN is quite the opposite- editor changes to headlines are often more ambiguous than the original titles.