"For a while, it seemed as though social-media feeds could fulfill that same function. Now it’s clear that the tech companies have little interest in directing users to material outside of their feeds. According to Axios, the top news and media sites have seen 'organic referrals' from social media drop by more than half over the past three years. As of last week, X no longer displays the headlines for articles that users link to. The decline in referral traffic disrupts media business models, further degrading the quality of original content online. The proliferation of cheap, instant A.I.-generated content promises to make the problem worse...."
Time for a blog revival. Some of us have never left.
Posts
35 comments:
Drudge did OK with his 'blog.'
"Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore/The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be over"
It was over for half the country long before now.
X or twitter is doing that because liberal/left newspapers have been attacking Musk and TWitter ever since he took it over. Why should Musk help them out, when they've been supporting the ADL Boycott?
Personally, i rarely read the MSM News articles, 90 percent of the time its just propaganda, not news. I don't need to read some slanted attack on Trump, disguised as a news story, for the 10,000th time.
"Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore/The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be over."
Disambiguation: "The Internet Isn't Fun Anymore/The social-media echo-chambers we used to freebase our ideas from our fellow-travelers and consumed approved talking points because we're unoriginal trustafarian adolescents appears to be over."
A blog I still read once in a while used to have scantily clad females gracing their Friday afternoon posts. They stopped, saying that since becoming popular they wanted to be respectable, too. So it goes.
Eventually the MinTruth will send out blog contents for the week in advance, so we know what to think every day.
Kyle Chayka mainly and inadvertently admits to personal character traits and/or thinking like a sheltered child. Not fun? Well, you chose your sites. Were you living in the warm and fuzzy happy-bubble of old Twitter before Musk popped it?
Way back in the 1980s and early 1990s before there was a web, there was Internet Relay Chat (IRC), ICQ, and Usenet. There were also many independent dial-up Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) around the country. They too were full of brainless drivel and nonsense and p0rn. They often weren't commercial and often not corporate-minded, but still, they contained lots of drivel. Blogger (here) was an attempted 1990s to early 2000s solution to that mess. Reddit and 4Chan and others continue the old-school drivel stream model.
Find or develop your own quality content. Don't depend on others to spoon feed you. Life strategy 101.
My phone regularly feeds me AI generated content. It's formulaic garbage. Just this side of click-bait. If that's the wave of media future, then there is no hope for the news business. People won't read it and they definitely won't pay for it.
"According to Axios, the top news and media sites have seen 'organic referrals' from social media drop by more than half over the past three years."
Perhaps half the referrals have been censored out of existence.
Web logs for the news. News with pride memes.
I'm aggregating' as best I can.
In the early days of referrals all the news sites weren't behind a paywall.
Print media relied on advertising to pay the bills- the money paid by buyers was to pay the distributors, the newsstands, carriers, etc. Miniscule compared to the production costs.
A totally digital news site doesn't need printing presses. Doesn't need linotype machines. Doesn't need drivers. Or trucks.
So what is news anyway? Well, in the past, information curated by editors who chose what we all got to see.
I saw a complaint yesterday about news coming out from Gaza. Seems the elite are really upset that people are able to see what Hamas is posting, without it being filtered. And it's showing only one side- and the side it's showing isn't what the elite want us to see. It's showing Hamas is evil- by our standards. Hamas wants to show what it's doing. Not evil by theirs. By allowing us to see it unfiltered- we all seem to be coming to the conclusion that ethnic cleansing/genocide of the Gazans may be a totally acceptable option. Because the information coming out is unfiltered.
That earlier generation of blogs once performed the task of aggregating news and stories from across the Internet
That's how I ended up I staying here. Ann could go out in the inter webs and retrieve interesting stuff. i complemented her for it and she responded with some mopey loathing comment about that's not what she does or something. Okay, fine...
I was never on the SnapFace but if they are looking to post back and forth with your fellow humans use a Messages type app. We have an expended friends and family conversation open all the time at the ready but I suspect this person misses the feeling of broadcasting and the possibility of fame their wisdom going viral. Go to the TikToks...
The decline in referral traffic disrupts media business models, further degrading the quality of original content online
Ya know I remember when Elon said he was doing this but I guess didn't realize exactly what he was doing or the goal...now I totally get it. Fuck you propagandists...
"That earlier generation of blogs once performed the task of aggregating news and stories from across the Internet."
Interesting.
This why I read this blog: I want someone to aggregate interesting stories for me. Hardly anyone does that anymore. Instead, its mostly narrow hysteria.
I was having a lot of very similar conversations and arguments on Usenet newsgroups back in the day. "Soc.hist.war." and "Alt.hist.war" (and their extensions for the ACWABAWS and WWII) were daily stops for me.
A few of my old comments are still to be found. Or were, a few months ago. I should check again.
"The decline in referral traffic disrupts media business models"
The horror. The...horror.
"Were you living in the warm and fuzzy happy-bubble of old Twitter before Musk popped it?"
Why yes. Yes he was.
Hard not to sound like an old fart. I thought the boom in blogs, underway before 9/11 but it really took off after, was great. I read Glenn Reynolds, and I discovered Althouse through Glenn's links. Kaus, a number of people who had not previously been known as journalists and then became journalists, a number of people who are not famous to this day. I started blogging, mainly for no readers or almost none, and I have kept at it. It helps me clarify my thoughts, sometimes for longer writing projects.
Kaus, with his Harvard Law degree, blogged about the Florida recount in 2000, which became Bush v. Gore. I thought it was all great. I was teaching American Con Law and referred to Kaus extensively.
But most of it was ephemeral, like a lot of good things. Twitter or X is not within a million miles of being as good as a good blog, although admittedly the masters like Trump, Coulter, Daley Haggar and others can make Twitter sing. I have recently discovered Peachy Keenan, who also writes longform pieces, and I like Mollie Hemingway who is something of a Real Journalist.
"The Crack Emcee said...
I'm aggregating' as best I can."
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
"X no longer displays the headlines for articles that users link to"
It does if you copy and paste the headline in there.
Just like that earlier generation of bloggers. That must be too much like work.
Lloyd W. Robinson,
With you on this. Instapundit is the best "aggregator" I know, and though his own comments have gone wacko of late, he links to all sorts of places whose comments aren't insane. Like this one (she says, hesitantly).
I've heard rumors of the WaPo comment section, and it doesn't sound fun at all.
Here's a story, that someone here will say all these:
A) it's NOT EVEN TRUE!
B) every has know about that, for some time
C) you heard about it, in an unapproved source, and THAT MEANS: It NEVER happened
D) You're stupid, because you used all caps, and THAT MEANS: this NEVER happened
Nord Stream 2.0? Finland-Estonia Undersea Pipeline In Baltic "Has Been Deliberately Damaged"
On the other hand.. The pipeline IS shut down
Early 21st Century blogs were interesting, informative and, sometimes, enjoyable. Many have since disappeared & most others have or are in the process of monetizing. Althouse has remained pretty constant, however, full disclosure, I much preferred employed Althouse to retired Althouse.
You declared for Obama. The day you did that I was done with you as a political force. The end.
Last True Journalist, Eric Sevareid. Find his final broadcast and watch it.
I resist the impulse to follow links to media because it is so often unsatisfying. Content is often blocked so I have to struggle with paywall removal sites, or the content is obscured by hideous amounts of advertising and pop-ups etc. Those can also be fought, but after all of that it remains the case that the headlines that prompted the click were misleading click bait and the actual content is dreck.
The same is true for substack, and increasingly is true for X. Too many mediocre "content creators" shilling for net-bucks.
gilbar:
C) you heard about it, in an unapproved source, and THAT MEANS: It NEVER happened.
Lot of that going around. If it's not a major paper (typically left leaning) it's not a 'real' news source. Anyone remember how Andy Ngo was treated?
That’s why I still check both Instapundit and Ace of Spadeseach morning, along with some other blogs. They do the curated aggregation for me.
And, having access to blogs that are actually run by people with a point of view, rather than bots, is why I read Substack blogs. And, I write one, as well - http://Linda’s fox.Substack.com
The decline in referral traffic disrupts media business models, further degrading the quality of original content online.
Major Media (newspapers, magazines) used to search for and source stories and news -- and the market allowed them to charge readers and control distribution.
The market has changed (Technology!) allowing on-line publications to source their stories from Major Media (with or without attribution) and make money from subscriptions and/or ads.
Will news gathering die? Will on-line "news" be limited to re-packaged (or not) PR handouts? Stay tuned -- or not.
I have been blogging for 21 years now. The style and content has changed somewhat over the years, delving a little less into technology, a little more into politics and opinion. My focus has shifted a little, sometimes dealing with local events - local being defined as in my home state - rather than just national and worldwide events.
I used to post daily but life intervened and now it's Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
People still read it, maybe not as many as used to. (An unexpected disappearance of an earlier host certainly hurt until I was able to get re-established on another platform.) I do get the rare Instalanch or Grok-storm now and then.
I enjoy it and it lets me vent, inform, or debate.
I have been blogging for 21 years now. The style and content has changed somewhat over the years, delving a little less into technology, a little more into politics and opinion. My focus has shifted a little, sometimes dealing with local events - local being defined as in my home state - rather than just national and worldwide events.
I used to post daily but life intervened and now it's Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
People still read it, maybe not as many as used to. (An unexpected disappearance of an earlier host certainly hurt until I was able to get re-established on another platform.) I do get the rare Instalanch or Grok-storm now and then.
I enjoy it and it lets me vent, inform, or debate.
I have been blogging for 21 years now. The style and content has changed somewhat over the years, delving a little less into technology, a little more into politics and opinion. My focus has shifted a little, sometimes dealing with local events - local being defined as in my home state - rather than just national and worldwide events.
I used to post daily but life intervened and now it's Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
People still read it, maybe not as many as used to. (An unexpected disappearance of an earlier host certainly hurt until I was able to get re-established on another platform.) I do get the rare Instalanch or Grok-storm now and then.
I enjoy it and it lets me vent, inform, or debate.
I have been blogging for 21 years now. The style and content has changed somewhat over the years, delving a little less into technology, a little more into politics and opinion. My focus has shifted a little, sometimes dealing with local events - local being defined as in my home state - rather than just national and worldwide events.
I used to post daily but life intervened and now it's Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
People still read it, maybe not as many as used to. (An unexpected disappearance of an earlier host certainly hurt until I was able to get re-established on another platform.) I do get the rare Instalanch or Grok-storm now and then.
I enjoy it and it lets me vent, inform, or debate.
I need to blog more frequently. I'm at about a one post a year pace, LOL. I'm better at microblogging on X.
It would be nice if Google/Alphabet invested a little bit of time updating blogger/blogspot, to modernize things. At least they haven't dumped it like so many of their products.
I have been blogging for 21 years now. The style and content has changed somewhat over the years, delving a little less into technology, a little more into politics and opinion. My focus has shifted a little, sometimes dealing with local events - local being defined as in my home state - rather than just national and worldwide events.
I used to post daily but life intervened and now it's Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
People still read it, maybe not as many as used to. (An unexpected disappearance of an earlier host certainly hurt until I was able to get re-established on another platform.) I do get the rare Instalanch or Grok-storm now and then.
I enjoy it and it lets me vent, inform, or debate.
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