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@quinn @ianb @damien @Edent is knowing the referrers essential to them referring in the first place?

@bryanruby @quinn @ianb @damien @Edent is your point about more and better journalism exists because news orgs know who’s mentioning them? Because I see no evidence anywhere showing that journalism has improved because news orgs know who’s pointing people their way. I see a race to the bottom on clickbait in a desperate effort to get more ad sales.
When I was in the biz, I promised my publisher I’d bring more readers by delivering higher-quality content rather than catering to advertisers directly.

@aardvark @quinn @ianb @damien @Edent I’m talking about keeping the lights on. I’m talking about if you’re choosing social media platform over A than B…than A better show something better in return than B. Determining this is often based on analytics. I’m talking about how one might increase your subscribers through social media so you stay in business. Unfortunately, as the last two decades have shown, higher quality content doesn’t guarantee you get more paying readers.

@bryanruby @quinn @ianb @damien @Edent I guess I’m dense. I know folks posting everywhere, and automation to write once/post everywhere are available. If you control the post, you control the link you offer and can add your own tag in the link to id the platform. I can see it would be nice to know who’s talking about you and which particular posts are taking off, but that doesn’t strike me as much more than a nice to have, but I’m no expert, so I’m asking and listening. Thanks for your response above.

@aardvark

Whenever I asked a company, celebrity, or organization why they’re not on a particular social media platform most will say it comes down to branding and control. They want to understand the audience they’re posting to before they have a presence. For many too, they also need to understand how best to handle the replies on that platform. For example, blatant advertising on X may be acceptable but likely not so here on Mastodon.

@quinn @ianb @damien @Edent

@bryanruby @quinn @ianb @damien @Edent interesting. I’ve gotten to know at least a corner of the Fediverse by, you know, being here and paying attention. A referrer indicator isn’t going to available until they decide to invest time and brainpower into a platform. The lack of referrers may seem like a big price to pay, but it just sounds lazy to me. Again, I’m not a pro in the space (just been a netizen for way long). I’m interested to learn what I’m missing.

@quinn @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent I’m not know which sentence to add your ellipsis to. Sorry, just a little tired and I want to be sure to get your point.

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent "catering to advertisers" is not an easy question. higher quality content has been shown to neither bring in more readers nor more revenue, in fact it may bring less than many of the lower quality alternatives. i don't love this fact, but i can't fight with the reality of it. the three legged stool is devastated, it's over, it's gone. for publications trying to do ads and pay writers, being able to sell s premium product is a matter of...

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent

... being able to deliver a particular verifiable audience that is valuable and otherwise hard to reach. That's the realm of the FT, Economist, Vogue, etc. But general, non-identity based news and journalism basically doesn't have a business model at all post internet. You can get foundation funds, or you can target a lucrative audience, but neither of those incentives good general journalism.

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent There is a lot of journalism I *love* these days. But while @ProPublica is AMAZING and I adore them, it isn't and shouldn't be your only source for news. That would be depressing and leave out a lot of useful information about weather and baseball. So things are really complicated and rough for the 4th estate, and what might be the most important job of journalism, the day to day, isn't something you can make a living doing.

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica and as it turns out that even more true when you're doing a good job; traffic ie readers, are cost source on the internet. So bringing in more readers can actually bankrupt you. that's new! and horrible!

ofc with the right set up your traffic can translate to positive cashflow, but getting there is now non-trivial. it takes a *specialist* to figure out how to make a readership into a revenue stream.

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica and that is about gathering and analyzing complicated data about your pub, site, and audience, then massaging that all into a product you can sell ads against with some level of guarantees to your advertisers. But that also means you're going to be gathering a maybe unethical amount of data on your readership and selling it on. This is what nearly every large publication does now.

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica here is an actual map of the first page of the new york times. I promised they don't even know all the stuff loaded onto their page: https://lookyloo.circl.lu/tree/158cc6fc-f099-45d0-afe6-d17ce68f6083 and that is literally just the first page (this tool is the only one that really captures how it works, and the only people using it are in security, not journalism ) is this an ethical amount and set of data to be passing to no name brokers all over the net? I don't know! No one does!

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica But i'm also not going to tell people to stop doing this because general journalism would cease to exist. i don't care how good and careful your work is, how well you run your newspaper, if you're not catering to rich people, or you're not selling data about normal people, and you're not hyperlocal and *very* beloved, you're not making a living in for-profit journalism. that... takes data first and foremost.

@aardvark @bryanruby @ianb @damien @Edent @ProPublica maybe i should turn this thread into another depressing piece of journalism i don't really get paid for