Brian Fuller’s blog on the state of media and communications

You are what you click on

Posted on | January 14, 2008 | No Comments

Great essay at AdAge today from Simon Dumenco who analyzes Nick Denton’s pay-per-click editorial model at Gawker Media. It’s inevitable that this model begins to take hold, at least in some parts. But does it work? Perhaps in the short run it helps pump up page views and therefore ad inventory, but it can have the same effect as tabloid scandal sheets—devaluing everything, from editorial content to the audience the advertiser is expecting to reach.

The world is still in cost-per-thousand (CPM) mode, but that’s changing quickly because while the web is about reach, it’s also about targeting. And if it’s about targeting, it’s also about engagement, a word people are beginning to loathe but haven’t quite replaced in this conversation. So if a person spends three minutes reading a thoughtful piece from Dumenco and engages with an ad, that should be more valuable than a bunch of Gawker hits, with people spending 30 seconds on a number of tidbitty items. In theory. Let’s hope it works out that way, because it’ll help keep good editorial flowing. As Dumenco notes, you are what you click on.

BTW, people are already trying to writer Gawker’s obit, especially at the oft-pounded New York Times, where somehow they manged to make the new phrase for over the hill (”jumping the shark”) “jumping the snark” in the hed and jump in yesterday’s paper.

 

 

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