[ed. See also: Zuckerberg wrestles with the same issue.]
One of the anomalies of digital journalism is a lack of clarity between high and low. That's the historic distinction in publishing, mass from class, the vulgar from the refined, tabloid from broadsheet, the penny press from papers costing a nickel.
You knew who you were by what you read. You were what you read.
For writers, writing for the New Yorker was not only a different experience, and different purpose, but actually imputed different meaning than writing for, say, the Reader's Digest, or the New York Post, or, for that matter, Time. Even the upper segment was segmented, each brand cultivating its form of elitism.
Now, in a sense, there is just Buzzfeed and its like, traffic magnet sites. Buzzfeed's editor, Ben Smith, is a credible journalist who now works in the middle of a random content stew, that, in another world, would have devalued his skills and undermined his career potential. But Smith, along with a whole generation of writers who exist outside of intellectual caste or conceit, is part of a flattened world, one in which there is only one real measure, traffic. And almost all traffic is low value. Hence the main job is getting more of it, and, if possible, to incrementally raise its value.
Which is why the New York Times now finds itself, grimly, and with the greatest self-pity, having to accept native advertising or branded content. In an achingly self-conscious memo, the Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger (quite a big gun to announce a minor advertising development), tried to explain "our version of what is sometimes called 'native advertising' or 'branded content'" and why it would not offend Times readers or the Times' sensibility.
How advertising is handled has always been a key distinction between low and high order publishing. The higher you stood, the more separate you were from advertising, and, in the logic of snobbery, the greater a premium price the top brands would pay to be in your company. Whereas, lower order publishing (middle market newspapers, Sunday supplements, women's magazines, hobby magazines, trade magazines) has, traditionally, done pretty much anything that advertisers wanted.
In the new digital world of content disaggregation (where you find a single article through search engines or social media referral, rather than seeking out a particular brand) and traffic aggregation (in which ad networks and programmatic buying now deliver huge audiences largely disconnected from a brand), snobbery has less and less of a place.
The 'New York Times' traffic, or, for that matter the New Yorker's, does not trade at much of a premium to Buzzfeed or Gawker, both sites that are now earning incrementally greater advertising rates with native advertising programs.
Native advertising is a response by ad-supported content sites to deal with the fact that display advertising – clearly separated advertising units on a given page – yields ever-more discouraging response rates. The alternative, a common practice of lower order publishing, is to create advertising content that is easily confused with editorial content, in the hope of raising response rates.
Suffice it to say, it is easier for an advertiser to mimic the hodge-podge of Buzzfeed content than to mimic, say, the New Yorker's content. Again, the high and low divide. Indeed, many of the most successful new content sites –Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Gawker, Business Insider, and Glam Media, among them – are such an amalgam of aggregated content, partnership sharing agreements, pay per click modules, user generated contributions, and, as well, the blitherings of novice journalists (sometimes heralded as a return to long form), that it's very hard, if not pointless, to separate real content from phony stuff. Hence, the Times' angst.
One of the anomalies of digital journalism is a lack of clarity between high and low. That's the historic distinction in publishing, mass from class, the vulgar from the refined, tabloid from broadsheet, the penny press from papers costing a nickel.
You knew who you were by what you read. You were what you read.For writers, writing for the New Yorker was not only a different experience, and different purpose, but actually imputed different meaning than writing for, say, the Reader's Digest, or the New York Post, or, for that matter, Time. Even the upper segment was segmented, each brand cultivating its form of elitism.
Now, in a sense, there is just Buzzfeed and its like, traffic magnet sites. Buzzfeed's editor, Ben Smith, is a credible journalist who now works in the middle of a random content stew, that, in another world, would have devalued his skills and undermined his career potential. But Smith, along with a whole generation of writers who exist outside of intellectual caste or conceit, is part of a flattened world, one in which there is only one real measure, traffic. And almost all traffic is low value. Hence the main job is getting more of it, and, if possible, to incrementally raise its value.
Which is why the New York Times now finds itself, grimly, and with the greatest self-pity, having to accept native advertising or branded content. In an achingly self-conscious memo, the Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger (quite a big gun to announce a minor advertising development), tried to explain "our version of what is sometimes called 'native advertising' or 'branded content'" and why it would not offend Times readers or the Times' sensibility.
How advertising is handled has always been a key distinction between low and high order publishing. The higher you stood, the more separate you were from advertising, and, in the logic of snobbery, the greater a premium price the top brands would pay to be in your company. Whereas, lower order publishing (middle market newspapers, Sunday supplements, women's magazines, hobby magazines, trade magazines) has, traditionally, done pretty much anything that advertisers wanted.
In the new digital world of content disaggregation (where you find a single article through search engines or social media referral, rather than seeking out a particular brand) and traffic aggregation (in which ad networks and programmatic buying now deliver huge audiences largely disconnected from a brand), snobbery has less and less of a place.
The 'New York Times' traffic, or, for that matter the New Yorker's, does not trade at much of a premium to Buzzfeed or Gawker, both sites that are now earning incrementally greater advertising rates with native advertising programs.
Native advertising is a response by ad-supported content sites to deal with the fact that display advertising – clearly separated advertising units on a given page – yields ever-more discouraging response rates. The alternative, a common practice of lower order publishing, is to create advertising content that is easily confused with editorial content, in the hope of raising response rates.
Suffice it to say, it is easier for an advertiser to mimic the hodge-podge of Buzzfeed content than to mimic, say, the New Yorker's content. Again, the high and low divide. Indeed, many of the most successful new content sites –Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Gawker, Business Insider, and Glam Media, among them – are such an amalgam of aggregated content, partnership sharing agreements, pay per click modules, user generated contributions, and, as well, the blitherings of novice journalists (sometimes heralded as a return to long form), that it's very hard, if not pointless, to separate real content from phony stuff. Hence, the Times' angst.
The Times' substantial investment in resources, quality controls, expertise, and exclusivity is now competing in a form better served by the opposite of those things.
Image: Richard Drew/AP
by Micheal Wolff, The Guardian | Read more:
