If I posted this article a year ago, or better yet, several years ago, more people would have read it than will read it today.
Are we losing our touch? That’s for you to say, but I don’t believe that’s the problem. Instead it’s likely a combination of things, starting with the fact that the novelty has worn off. Ad blogs are no longer new, and they’re not exactly exciting. Some ad blogs have worked to bring the excitement level up — Adrants uses tits and ass to do that, while Agency Spy encourages snarky comments.
There’s another important factor. My approach as editor is a traditional one. That is, I believe in the content here and for me that’s what it’s all about. But I may be wrong, in market place terms, especially now.
I first got a sense of this last fall when talking with Daniel Honigman, one of the founders of AdYapper. He told me that it’s not just about the content any longer, it’s about creating a platform where readers can talk to us and more importantly, to one another.
Jordan Kurzweil of Independent Content, also sees things the Honigman way. Writing in TechCrunch last February, Kurzweil argues: “Consider your most cherished asset – content – as currency, not the end-all, be-all, but a means to an end.”
Ask: If content is your conduit, what can your audience do, and what will give them more value once they have engaged with your product? And I don’t mean: read another article, search our newly digitized library of old content, or print this page. We’re talking about what service or product experience, what self-sustaining platform, what new thing can you get your audience to try, share and love.
Content is no longer king. It’s just a carrot. Because people don’t want a steady diet of carefully-made articles, people want to place themselves in the center of the action. At least, that’s what I’m hearing from others working on the problem. What I am not hearing is what you want. Maybe I haven’t asked you lately, but let me correct that. What do you want from this site? And how can you get more value from our content?
Previously on AdPulp: Give Advertisers Some Backtalk
I don’t visit the site much these days. I still read via my RSS reader. But frankly, a couple of things really bug me. It’s like 95% of what you post are videos, and it looks like you take the lazy way out just posting the video – no set up, no info about why it is good/bad/cool/. I can go to YouTube for that. Another thing is that it doesn’t seem like you do any of the original content that I liked that much anymore, interviews/guest posts by people in the industry and your agencies in strange places series and those kinds of things. Seems that if you can’t copy/paste something, you don’t post it.
One thing that irked me was when you were begging for money a while back. I got the feeling that you were either making money and being greedy, or you weren’t making any money and felt you were entitled to it because you are “a blogger.” Both of those just leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Thank you for taking the time to comment here Kmar1975. One of the great things about the ad biz is how thick one’s skin becomes. The sting of your analysis would penetrate that skin, despite its thickness, if there was a bit more reality in what you’re saying. For instance, we don’t just put up videos and leave it at that. I hear that you think we’re lazy (and greedy), but that’s not correct. In fact, if we’ve proven anything at all here, it’s that we’re deep in the trenches, working several hours a day to provide this totally free content. I’m now aware that you fail to appreciate that, and I will make a note of it going forward.