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They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but how much is a title worth? If the story that proceeds is any indicator, a title is worth over 6700 words and months of research. It all began Friday when the New York Times published an article “How Companies Learn Your Secrets“. It was an extremely long article which discussed how large companies like WalMart and Target collect data about your individual consumption patters to figure out how to most efficiently make you happy. It was a great piece but there was one problem: it didn’t have the title it deserved.
How Forbes Stole A New York Times Article And Got All The Traffic
Seeded on Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:14 AM EST
Article Source: nickoneill.com
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- Public Discussion (6)
O'Neill updates (at bottom of article) that the NYT had more Facebook likes than he'd originally thought.
However, I believe his premise still stands (as I post a link to his story here on Newsvine, for purposes of discussing it here, rather than on his site).
I got to that NYT story via the Forbes story. So I clicked on the Forbes story first, giving them some traffic, and then went to the NYT, giving them traffic. I recall being confused when I ended up at the NYT story, because Forbes had focused in on the teen-pregnancy angle, and NYT took a little longer to get there.
Is what Forbes did "stealing?" Think about that in terms of how we title seeds here on Newsvine--I've long encouraged titles of seeds to be the original title, except in cases where clarification is absolutely necessary. As is often done on Newsvine, however, the title is changed to express the seeder's opinion on the subject of the article, and oftentimes, readers don't click through to actually read the article itself, on the site on which it resides, but rather just argue the point being made by the changed title.
Interested in your thoughts.
- 4 votes
#1 - Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:18 AM ESTTwo things. Let's face it, the more lurid headlines attract more attention, and most people have the attention span of a gnat and have a hard time reading anything but the headline. We see it here every day where headlines are twisted to say something that possibly doesn't really exist in the article, sometime by the seeder here and sometimes in the (semi) original article. Seeds from blogs seem to be the worst.
I'm an information junkie, I like to dig deeper. I do it for selfish reasons, only because my curiosity gets the better of me and I dislike not knowing about something that interests me. While my memory is not what it used to be, I still have the time to keep trying to learn things, and sometimes relearn them.
On Newsvine, I frequently see people that have neither the time, nor the inclination, to dig deeper than the headline. All sides are guilty of this. They read a headline, and comment, sometimes stupidly. Some people are very good at either finding those headlines, or changing them into the tabloid style that seems to sell so well. I tend to stay away from them and the 500+ comment threads that bicker about nothing over and over. It's too much like spending a weekend with an ex-wife.
- 1 vote
All I can say to that is "I agree." 100%. I wish it were required that we use the original headline, perhaps only stripped of extraneous stuff that the seed page auto-fills from the link.
But I've long ago given up on trying to convince anyone that the best way is the more honest way. I stay away from those threads, too. And if it's a subject I'm interested in, I'll seed it myself (with the actual title) and conduct the discussion with those who are interested in actually discussing the subject (and discussing it respectfully).
- 2 votes
I subscribed to Forbes. I had to use tongs to put it in the trash. The magazine championed the most shallow desires of the very rich, and had no useful information in it, unless you wanted to know which person had the most expensive yatch, jet, etc. If there was a lesson to be learned from the one issue I actually scanned while defacating, it was how absolutely and completely without class rich people are.
#2 - Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:38 AM ESTI haven't read Forbes much more than an occasional flip-through when sitting in a doctor's office.
But I do have to disagree with you on rich people. I know a lot of very classy and wonderful people who have a lot of money. I'm not sure it's ever wise to paint with a broad brush. I've also met some very classy and wonderful people who have absolutely no money, and some total jackasses/classless fools whose bank accounts were empty.
- 3 votes
O.K., some rich people, the kind who build towers on their roofs so they have the tallest mansion.
- 1 vote
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