Why GRM > jalopnik

Short version: GRM has a community of enthusiastic and intelligent people. Gawker's head has told all gawker properties (including jalopnik) that subscribers/commenters don't matter.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/learning-to-love-the-shallow-divisive-unreliable-new-media/8415/

In the first New York profile, in 2007, Denton had said that an active “commenter” community was an important way to build an audience for a site. Now, he told me, he has concluded that courting commenters is a dead end. A site has to keep attracting new users—the omnipresent screens were recording the “new uniques” each story brought to the Gawker world—and an in-group of commenters might scare new visitors off. “People say it’s all about ‘engagement’ and ‘interaction,’ but that’s wrong,” he said. “New visitors are a better indicator and predictor of future growth.” A little more than one-third of Gawker’s traffic is new visitors; writers get bonuses based on how many new viewers they attract.

You called me intelligent, your so nice

It does kind of make you wonder, what's the point?

Murilee martin/Judge Johnny has made it clear that the push for "new uniques" is a major part of why he left. I suspect that the same is true for Sam Smith.

GRM rules, jalopnik drools. Long live GRM (and pretty please, don't go offline again).

Well, he's right, to a point. For continued growth, you HAVE to have new visitors.

First, your community of active participants is a tiny fraction of your total traffic.

Second, they remain relatively static. Some new ones show up, some leave, but the overall number of active participants is fairly flat. Certainly compared to general growth and potential growth it is.

Third, from a growth perspective, you don't have too worry too much about the active community. You already have them. They'll show up every day and do their thing. Just don't piss 'em off.

Now, on the flip side, Gawker has done a LOUSY job on that third point this year. They need new uniques because they've annoyed the hell out of their faithful.

And you have to ask yourself, what am I trying to grow? Numbers? Revenue? A tribe? They're different things, and require different strategies.

And aside from all of that, there is plenty of value to having a vibrant community that has nothing to do with traffic growth. IF you're willing to listen to them -- something else Gawker has appeared spectacularly uninterested in.

But they're still ahead of Digg.

Unique visitors is definitely important in generating ad revenue, but how can Denton forget the crucial connection between current readers and new users? Current readers share, like, link, and twitter pages that interest them, spreading information like wildfire through their social webs. What happens once their most devoted supporters jump ship? Are these users more likely to support advertisers than people just passing through?

That being said, I stopped visiting Jalopnik a few months back. The stories became quite dull, the layout became terrible (likely to maximize the number of "clicks"), and it's generally not worth the bother anymore.

I'm not a super-duper all the time user of Jalopnik, but I'd make these general statements:

1. New users ARE important.

2. An active, committed community is also extremely important.

3. If 2 is comprised entirely—or even mostly—of pustulent, leaking, word-anuses, they will scare away 1, and never emerge from their dead parents' basements.

Bottom line, the right community can be as big a draw to future growth as anything. Look at all the new names in the FF design thread, and now I'm seeing some of them in other threads as well. If you guys were always dicks they'd have runoff long ago.

So thanks for being nice. Thanks for keeping it real, and thanks for largely policing yourself and building this community how YOU want it.

Thanks from us, and thanks for letting us play, too.

jg

GRM has more Miatas /thread

GRM Staff: This thread has got me thinking - these forums have got to count for a huge portion of your site traffic. You guys are missing an opportunity by not including ads of your big/recurring adspace clients here on the forums. Those vendors (TireRack, Moss, Safe Racer, etc) are right up our alley and unlike while reading GRM magazine, we would able to click through directly to their sites or promotions.

Isn't the GRM website basically an ad for the magazine, though?

nderwater, you raise an interesting point about the revenue value of communities, particularly forums. The forums are huge traffic-wise, and absolutely miserable as far as click-through rates. Forumgoers just don't click ads.

Case in point: there are ads here on the forum.

Advertisers (the smart ones, anyway) are only interested in raw traffic as a branding exercise. If you're putting up your ad dollars, you want click-throughs and conversions. Above all, conversions. That's the holy grail. Don't sell me a million page views that only give me a hundred click-throughs and a handful of conversions. Give me 1000 page views that can do the same thing.

Forums suck at both click-throughs and conversions.

If I was an advertiser on this site, I'd MUCH rather be on readers rides or articles than the forum. I'm pretty sure I'd get more action-ready eyeballs.

Tim Baxter wrote: nderwater, you raise an interesting point about the revenue value of communities, particularly forums. The forums are huge traffic-wise, and absolutely miserable as far as click-through rates. Forumgoers just don't click ads. Case in point: there are ads here on the forum. Advertisers (the smart ones, anyway) are only interested in raw traffic as a branding exercise. If you're putting up your ad dollars, you want click-throughs and conversions. Above all, conversions. That's the holy grail. Don't sell me a million page views that only give me a hundred click-throughs and a handful of conversions. Give me 1000 page views that can do the same thing. Forums suck at both click-throughs and conversions. If I was an advertiser on this site, I'd MUCH rather be on readers rides or articles than the forum. I'm pretty sure I'd get more action-ready eyeballs.

Baxter gets a lot right, although there are ads on the msg board pages, just not many of them and tastefully displayed off to the side. The other section advertisers are clamoring to get in are the articles. It's the closes analogue on the web to having an ad in the magazine, so it seems to work and be classy for all involved.

What we'll NEVER do, is completely whore the thing up so you can't tell what came from us and what's an ad. We don't want that, and neither do our advertisers. Most of our advertisers spend money with us because they know they're reaching people who understand and appreciate why ads exist in magazines, and who also use them as a resource when making a decision, not just as a thing that caught their eye that raised their awareness of product A. We feel the ads are integrated into the mag in such a way as to provide actual value to the reader as well.

Bottom line: Look for more website ads, but know that a), they'll continue to be well-integrated and relavant. b) you'll never wonder if something is an ad or editorial and, c) No boner pills or Russian brides without prior research and testing by the staff.

jg

I know why I never click on any of this forum's ads - I didn't know they were there! I just set my browser to stop blocking ads for this domain and for the first time can see the two ad spots for Classic Motorsports and sponsoring vendors.

That issue aside, what seems to be missing from the small ads here is a 'call to action'. If I want to get to the FlyinMiata web site, I type FlyinMiata.com - I don't need a banner ad to get there. But you can drive me to click a banner ad if the info is sticky and relevant - like an invitation to see a highlights video from FM's last Miata Migration.

I realize that I'm getting into the weeds here, but what would you guys think if the foum ads were interactive (mouseover expands the image to show the sponsor's full magazine advert) or were more prominently located (nestled between every x # of forum posts)?

I think if GRM did either of those things, I'd hold you personally responsible and hate you forever.

Again, Baxter is right.

We're looking at options, but they're all subtle options. Much like we have with so many of the advertisers—a partnership—we want that relationship to carry over to the readers. One friend recommending another friend and those two become friends on their own. That's how you build a community. Not with boner pills.

Well, you can, but it's a WAAAAYYY different community.

jg

JG Pasterjak wrote: That's how you build a community. Not with boner pills. Well, you can, but it's a WAAAAYYY different community.

I can't say as I make much time to read the mag anymore, but remarks from staff like those above ensure that I'll never, ever let my GRM subscription lapse.

Well played, JG.

Jalopnick freezes my computer, GRM does not.

JG Pasterjak wrote: We feel the ads are integrated into the mag in such a way as to provide actual value to the reader as well.

Well, I'm only one voice, but I think they are. GRM is the only magazine where I actually like the ads. I actually dog ear pages with items I've been looking for and have used your magazine to find retailers I've purchased things from.

Agreed with Salanis. I make the vast majority of my car products based solely on whether or not they advertise in GRM. Racing Beat, Flyin Miata, GoPro, Falken, and Mazdaspeed can all count me as a customer because of it.

I like that your ads online are so low-key as well. I will actually refresh the forum until the BaT ad comes up to click on it rather than type in their name.

neon4891 wrote: Jalopnick freezes my computer, GRM does not.

werd. even when the grm board was brand new and had all kind of wierd issues, it still never flat out didnt work perioid. also never had "stack overflow" errors i can remember in recent history

nderwater wrote: I realize that I'm getting into the weeds here, but what would you guys think if the foum ads were interactive (mouseover expands the image to show the sponsor's full magazine advert) or were more prominently located (nestled between every x # of forum posts)?

I agree with Baxter on this one. If number two happened, I would quit visiting the site and I'm sure many others would as well.

Salanis wrote:

JG Pasterjak wrote: We feel the ads are integrated into the mag in such a way as to provide actual value to the reader as well.

Well, I'm only one voice, but I think they are. GRM is the only magazine where I actually *like* the ads. I actually dog ear pages with items I've been looking for and have used your magazine to find retailers I've purchased things from.

The thing that's nicest about GRM is that the staff clearly try to place ads so that they are relevant to the articles in question. I often tear out an articles and file them to use as a later reference, and it is nice that the ads in the middle of those articles are related. If I try a project similar to the one in the article, I know which vendors to look up.

I didn't mean to start a thread about advertising, though. I just wanted to say that it is nice that you don't treat the forum community as an after thought.

JG Pasterjak wrote: and, c) No boner pills or Russian brides without prior research and testing by the staff.

Hmmmm.....about that editorial position...

neon4891 wrote: Jalopnick freezes my computer, GRM does not.

Yeah, WTF is up with that? I now have to remember not to click on any Jalopnik links for fear of my computer taking a E36 M3. And it's not like I'm on a 286 over here - I'm on a 64 bit quad core CAD workstation with 8 gigs of RAM. Video Photo rendering doesn't lock up my machine, but a berkeleying car blog does? I'm not sure how they got it so wrong.

I was never a normal visitor to Jalopnik, but did enjoy the occasional links I was sent. Now I don't even bother.

No kidding. Jalop froze up on my Linux machine a while ago. I couldn't kill it or anything, had to power off and back on again. I'm really wondering how they accomplished that. That's hard to do even if you're trying to write malware! I've perused a couple times it via the ca.jalopnik.com subdomain since then but I've sure been avoiding links to the main site like the plague.

Has anyone seen a single comment or post anywhere on the internet from someone who likes their new format? I sure haven't. Lots of hate threads though.