Friday, January 6, 2006
Give Readers What They Want (Within Reason)
In
his column the other day,
Danny Westneat of the
Seattle Times reviewed the stats on what people read on
the newspaper's website last year. The top draw: horse sex.
That's right, an article about a man who died while having sex
with a horse was the top story on SeattleTimes.com in 2005, and several
related articles were in the top 20. Ugh.
But here I go again with the "there's a serious point here"
note: There's a serious point here, folks. I think one reason newspapers in
the United States are seeing such a steady decline in circulation can be
summed up in one word: "Boring." Because they're monopolies, lots of U.S.
daily newspapers are flat out snoozers. Little of national/international
interest, and little of local interest, either. Their best purpose is to
read them like Sominex -- in order to put you to sleep. It's less true in
Europe or Latin America, where four, five, six, even 10 newspapers compete
on the newsstand for your attention, and you've got to decide on a daily
basis which one to buy (or whether to buy one at all).
Think "interesting" and "exciting," whether in print or online.
Not just "important." The Web is a great tool for finding out what readers/users
are interested in. That doesn't mean you have to feed them a steady
diet of
Paris Hilton and sex with animals. It does mean that making your site, or
your newspaper, exciting and stimulating as well as important can be a way
to win readers and users.
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