Google and blogs: “Shit.” • Hacker News Board

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#11

Post by stevesearer » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 11:27 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #10

LukeHoersten wrote: post #2

The trend seems to be "blog + feed" all-in-one platforms like Medium.com now. The old blogging model was the feed readers were separate from the platforms. I'm not sure if that's better or worse but that seems to be all that's left.

Honestly, I think people just never really liked using feed readers. I saw in my own data that RSS usage seemed to top out in the late 2000s. I'm not really sure why it never expanded beyond the "early adopter" crowd. Maybe the readers were too hard to use or the benefits weren't explained clearly. Part of me kinda hopes it's because publishers started caring a lot more about the design of their sites and people actu…

This is the reason I prefer that my readers subscribe to my opt-in weekly email newsletter rather than using Google Reader/RSS. They get a quick little digest of the top content from the previous week and click through if it looks interesting.

RSS is still available though, but the email channel is clearly the winner in terms of people using and interacting with it.

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#12

Post by eli » Mon, Feb 16, 2015, 11:47 PM UTC

stevesearer wrote: post #11

eli wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think people just never really liked using feed readers. I saw in my own data that RSS usage seemed to top out in the late 2000s. I'm not really sure why it never expanded beyond the "early adopter" crowd. Maybe the readers were too hard to use or the benefits weren't explained clearly. Part of me kinda hopes it's because publishers started caring a lot more about the design of their sites and people actu…

This is the reason I prefer that my readers subscribe to my opt-in weekly email newsletter rather than using Google Reader/RSS. They get a quick little digest of the top content from the previous week and click through if it looks interesting. RSS is still available though, but the email channel is clearly the winner in terms of people using and interacting with it.

Yup, it's hard to beat email for engagement. Maybe really well executed push notifications.

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#13

Post by marbletiles » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 12:22 AM UTC

eli wrote: post #10

LukeHoersten wrote: post #2

The trend seems to be "blog + feed" all-in-one platforms like Medium.com now. The old blogging model was the feed readers were separate from the platforms. I'm not sure if that's better or worse but that seems to be all that's left.

Honestly, I think people just never really liked using feed readers. I saw in my own data that RSS usage seemed to top out in the late 2000s. I'm not really sure why it never expanded beyond the "early adopter" crowd. Maybe the readers were too hard to use or the benefits weren't explained clearly. Part of me kinda hopes it's because publishers started caring a lot more about the design of their sites and people actu…

People love stripped-down versions: Instapaper, Pocket, Flipboard et al are all testament to that (as is AdBlock, to an extent)

I think it was almost entirely because the "follow/unfollow" experience was so clunky, especially compared to Twitter and FB. Even today, adding and removing feeds from my readers is unnecessary pain.

The hurdle is far too high for the casual audience.

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#14

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 1:12 AM UTC

Marco makes a solid point. The challenge for Google of course is that their CPC has been eroding for years now. That means the only way to make their number is to increase the available ad slots on the page, which pushes organic folks off the page. You can of course spend AdWords dollars and stay on the page, but then your RPM is offset by your ad spend and you're margins just get smaller anyway.

Bloggers who use AdSense get stuck even worse, they aren't getting organic link love and they are seeing the CPC decline as a flat out revenue decline.

The trend to apps is to get away from that of course. Your app will always show your content. Sites like Reddit and HN become more relevant traffic generators. And "portal" type sites like Medium will provide variability with their 'stable' of writers.

I totally agree with him that to "fix" this one has to go at it to build the thing they want. I'm guessing that is a combination of advertising and subscription revenue but we'll see.

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#15

Post by BobMarz » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 2:20 AM UTC

bishnu wrote: post #7

Yhippa wrote: post #5

What does the blog title mean?

Marco famously tweeted "Shit." when Apple introduced an Instapaper clone into iOS/Safari. He kinda re-uses it whenever a big company does something to squash smaller ones/individuals. It's tongue-in-cheek.

Not that famously it seems. He frets about traffic decline and wants to be more widely read, yet his headlines have inside jokes?

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#16

Post by bootload » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 3:39 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #14

Marco makes a solid point. The challenge for Google of course is that their CPC has been eroding for years now. That means the only way to make their number is to increase the available ad slots on the page, which pushes organic folks off the page. You can of course spend AdWords dollars and stay on the page, but then your RPM is offset by your ad spend and you're margins just get smaller anyway. Bloggers who use AdS…

"CPC, RPM"

acronym alert?

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#17

Post by omarrr » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 3:58 AM UTC

> we need to start pushing back against the trend, modernizing blogs, and building what we want to come next

this

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#18

Post by dingaling » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 7:53 AM UTC

What annoys me regarding Google and blogs is that content which is written on its own Blogger / Blogspot-hosted blogs is indexed and presented in the search results within minutes.

Everyone else has to wait until the Googlebot ambles along some time later in the week.

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#19

Post by ydant » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 1:54 PM UTC

bootload wrote: post #16

ChuckMcM wrote: post #14

Marco makes a solid point. The challenge for Google of course is that their CPC has been eroding for years now. That means the only way to make their number is to increase the available ad slots on the page, which pushes organic folks off the page. You can of course spend AdWords dollars and stay on the page, but then your RPM is offset by your ad spend and you're margins just get smaller anyway. Bloggers who use AdS…

"CPC, RPM" acronym alert?

Pretty standard for anyone who follows anything about advertising:

- CPC = Cost Per Click

- RPM = Revenue Per Mille (revenue per thousand impressions)

Both the C and R are sometimes used interchangeably - e.g. "RPC" and "CPM" mean roughly the same thing. It really just depends on which entity and which way the money's flowing if you think of the players in an advertising game:

[advertiser] -> [advertising platforms - e.g. Google] -> [publisher / traffic source]

One player's cost is another player's revenue.

Re: Google and blogs: “Shit.”

#20

Post by merrua » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 2:17 PM UTC

Google made it really hard to search for blogs or blog articles too. Which is annoying when you just want to check for articles on something by people rather than organisations.