Every fortnight I write a piece for the opinion pages of Resumé, this week I decided to translate it.
The social media and facebook algorithms make a certain type of headline viral. Upworthy proved to us all that we click on almost anything if the title is just right. Or worse, we spend a full day arguing with each other in the comments, without even having clicked. Once it was Google that directed traffic, now it's Twitter, Facebook and traffic-sellers like Taboola and Outbrain. It's easy to customize junk sites to look legitimate, at least for a moment, and pull traffic to it with headlines that draw people in. Famous brands advertising is seen on fly-by-night pages, a site that appeared yesterday and is gone tomorrow can make a lot of money. Legitimate media houses and junk sites are vying for the same advertising coin. The recipe for holding the traffic up is to report on, join or create the social media mobs, armed with tar and feathers. Readers tire, they outfit their computers and phones with Adblock. Upworthy headlines no longer appeal to people. What suffers is everything; from our ability to concentrate and read past the headline, to the craft of journalism itself.
It is simply not worth the trouble to make a quality product when a sarcastic review of someone's sex tape scoops more traffic - and even sympathy from fellow journalists when they lose the privacy intrusion case.
Anyone who thinks they can control what @Notch says on Twitter. Just stop that.
Categories:Country: Sweden Also tagged in:
adrants, opinion, resumé
