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How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic

nickoneill.com

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Re: How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic

#41

Post by antoncohen »

I don't see how Forbes "stole" the New York Times article. If anything they helped drive traffic to it, anyone interested in reading the 9 page article will do it. The 9 page NYT article itself was based off a 400 page book that is about to be released. The NYT article isn't stealing the book, anyone interested in reading 400 pages on the subject will. The NYT has a blog about news articles (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/), if they wanted to blog about their own article they could have.

There are good reasons to have the same information published with different levels of detail, they target different people, and can help lead people who are interested into reading the more detailed versions. For example the NYT wrote a 2 page article entitled "Flaw Found in an Online Encryption Method," which was based on a 17 page research paper. The NYT didn't steal the research paper. I personally think the NYT article on encryption was a scare story lacking in almost all technical detail, but it helped publicize research so people interested in the subject could read the full paper.

Re: How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic

#44

Post by ubojan »

potatolicious wrote: post #27
rweba wrote: post #21

(1) I object to the use of the term "stole" - there is no indication that the Forbes blogger did anything unethical. She gave links and full attribution to the NYT article and therefore helped to promote it. YES, the quotes from it are more extensive and lengthy than you would normally see but on the other hand it IS a NINE page article so I am pretty sure the excerpts still falls under Fair Use. (2) The article in q…

The Forbes "article" would have qualified as blogspam in every community I've been in. Giving proper attribution and linkback is a necessary but insufficient requirement. The question is: how much did Forbes add to the original content to warrant a clickthrough? If nothing of value was added, then Forbes is just jacking clicks. This is something many subreddits have had to deal with - the many, may spam blogs that si…

Forbes article was great and there is a link to the source. I tried to read NYT article, but it was too long. NYT articles in general are full of the fluff.

Re: How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic

#45

Post by njharman »

8ig8 wrote: post #42

With so much on the line, you'd think NYT would A/B test article titles. Anyone know if this is done with modern journalism? Is is feasible?

[from business perspective] The news cycle, attention span, and ability for anyone anywhere to blog/twitter about topic and "steal" your traffic. Makes breaking news and reaching crit-mass attention now! Makes A/B unrealistic and not worth the investment. Even on "static" items like this researched article you see how they failed to be firstest with the mostest and lost the traffic.

[from journalistic perspective] They A/B "test" at the journalist level. They hire several, the ones that write popular / prize winning articles are kept, the others get downsized.

Re: How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic

#46

Post by njharman »

8ig8 wrote: post #42

With so much on the line, you'd think NYT would A/B test article titles. Anyone know if this is done with modern journalism? Is is feasible?

[from business perspective] The news cycle, attention span, and ability for anyone anywhere to blog/twitter about topic and "steal" your traffic. Makes breaking news and reaching crit-mass attention now! Makes A/B unrealistic and not worth the investment. Even on "static" items like this researched article you see how they failed to be firstest with the mostest and lost the traffic.

[from journalistic perspective] They A/B "test" at the journalist level. They hire several, the ones that write popular / prize winning articles are kept, the others get downsized.

Re: How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic

#47

Post by pbiggar »

8ig8 wrote: post #42

With so much on the line, you'd think NYT would A/B test article titles. Anyone know if this is done with modern journalism? Is is feasible?

We considered this with NewsTilt, but never got far enough along to actually try it. The aim wasn't actually A/B testing them, but to use machine learning to predict how well the article would do given certain criteria: title, what time of day it was released, etc, to allow journalists to tweak those criteria. I think that was actually PG's idea.

Re: How Forbes Stole a New York Times Article and Got All The Traffic

#50

Post by hellosamdwyer »

Let's see... the NYT article was the cover story for the New York Times magazine, a high-quality long form read with a circulation of 1,623,697/week [wikipedia]. The high quality of these long form articles are one reasons why people pay to read the Times. Presumably, the Forbes post will not be in print.

The NYtimes.com has 16.3m monthly US visits, Forbes has 10.5m. [Compete] The NYT article has 435 comments (sign of high engagement) v. Forbes' 155.

I'm not sure how he pulled the total FB share data for the NYT article - they don't display that sharing information in the same way Forbes does.

In short, despite the validity of Nick O'Neil's main point - that a more descriptive title and a synoptic treatment can travel well - his rhetoric is more than a little overblown. Details matter, and what the Times article includes is deep context, originality, and above all, diligence.

As far as a regurgitative blog post making anyone's career... ha, I guess? Only if you want your career to be limited to that activity. The Forbes writer knows it - that's why she includes 6(!) links to the original article, as well as a plug of the original writer's upcoming book. Careers are built on respect, and the most valuable quality a writer or article can have is credibility. Otherwise, it's rubbish, no matter how many people buy it.

And, ultimately, the people who you want to respect you will know you make rubbish.

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