long tail – Dan Blank: Publishing, Innovation & the Web

Finding Room for Improvement in Your Online Product

"It’s really scary out there." That’s a phrase I keep hearing again and again. When I consider the challenges facing editors & content creators, among them is the fact that they have precious few resources to do a massive amount of work. On top of that, there is a constant barrage of reports of their… Continue reading Finding Room for Improvement in Your Online Product

Editorial ROI: Maximizing Performance With Few Resources

Today, I want to discuss how an editor or content creator can use some really basic web analytics to improve the performance of their products and deliver higher return-on-investment for their efforts. The chart above is a pretty typical example of a "long tail" graph. I made up the numbers above, but let’s consider that… Continue reading Editorial ROI: Maximizing Performance With Few Resources

Frankenstein Content: Make Your Articles Come Alive

I have been pouring over metrics for some brands here at Reed Business Information, and keep seeing a similar trend. Check out this graph which shows the page views for new articles that one brand uploaded to their site in a given month: Sure, you see the Long Tail here – a few articles getting… Continue reading Frankenstein Content: Make Your Articles Come Alive

The Benefits of Sharing Personal Information Online

Jeff Jarvis lists the reasons why it is good that people are living life more publicly, by posting more personal details about themselves on blogs, social networks, and elsewhere on the web: People “will maintain friendships and other relationships longer in life,” since they will have an archive of experiences online, and multiple ways to… Continue reading The Benefits of Sharing Personal Information Online

The Loneliness of the Long Tail

Alex Iskold states that “There’s No Money In The Long Tail of the Blogosphere.” “Because of the power law, the long tail of the blogosphere is huge and so any individual blog is not easily discovered. That is, the chance that a random Internet surfer will find a blog that is part of the long… Continue reading The Loneliness of the Long Tail

The New Media: Consolidation of Content Creation & Attention

Scott Karp looks at two media consolidation trends: The consolidation of content creation. The consolidating the power to decide which content gets attention. His examples of content consolidation are particularly interesting: Buying and selling links to influence search traffic — a practice Google is cracking down on to protect its own consolidation “Citizen media” sites… Continue reading The New Media: Consolidation of Content Creation & Attention

Can Bloggers Compete with Established News Sources?

Robert Scoble started off a bit of a debate online when he lashed out at some prominent blogs for not linking to his content, and to other bloggers on the web. “It’s interesting how everyone links to the New York Times, who of course doesn’t link to blogs, but very few bloggers will link to… Continue reading Can Bloggers Compete with Established News Sources?

The Value of Aggregation and User-generated Media

PaidContent points us to a presentation from a BearStearns analysis on the value of aggregation and user generation media. The 5 key findings from the presentation: Demand for video is likely to increase due to more choice and convenience. Niche and user generated content will find an audience because everybody’s tastes diverge from the mainstream… Continue reading The Value of Aggregation and User-generated Media

Online Publishing Model that Works

Read/Write Web looks at the success of About.com. Here’s how did they hit it big with topic-focused blogs: “31 Million people visiting it each month and according to Scott Meyer it has grown 30% in page views over the last year. Most of this growth can be attributed to one stat: About.com gets 80% of… Continue reading Online Publishing Model that Works