City Pages and Parent Gaming the Net?
By Brian Lambert
[UPDATED AGAIN] Frequent commenter, Jimmy, digs out this quote
from Village Voice Media executive David Schneiderman on maintaining
integrity while maximizing the Internet:
Jimmy writes: "For what it's worth, here's what could be a deliciously ironic quote from Voice CEO David Schneiderman, after he agreed in 2005 to step down to President of the Internet Division (I say could be because I still don't quite get all this alleged Digg skullduggery) when The Voice was swallowed up by New Media to become what many regard as the Clear Channel of so called 'alt weeklies.'":
"As for me, I am excited about the prospect of leading the effort to build a robust and successful web platform for the new company. The Internet will be a critical part of our future and it is essential that we use the talent and resources of the combined company to become important players in that world. "My immediate goal is to grow our online audience by utilizing our existing resources, and to break new ground in delivering fresh and compelling content to an ever-expanding audience in any way they wish to receive it. "I am sure most of you are aware of the bizarre charge that this merger will mark the end of alternative journalism. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Both Village Voice Media and New Times have earned a reputation for producing first-rate journalism. Both companies support and encourage their journalists to expose corruption, hypocrisy and incompetence wherever they find it. It defies logic to assert that those traditions will be undermined or abandoned as a result of this merger. In fact, I fully expect them to be strengthened."
Now the original post . . .
[UPDATED]: Local statistical marvel Ed Kohler has a fascinating--investigative--piece up on The Deets, breaking out at what first glance looks like excruciating detail about how our local alt weekly, City Pages, and its parent company, Village Voice Media, have been gaming the popular Digg.com website to create the appearance of vast amounts of new traffic (i.e. "impressions"), which in turn supports claims they can then make to advertisers.
City Pages' Blotter, written by one person, has gained--according to these numbers—tens of thousands of new readers in just a couple months. Moreover, Kohler claims this is systematized from Village Voice Media papers around the country.
Kohler's portrait is damning in the extreme.
I'm tracking Kohler and will add ASAP. (See below). But here's a snippet:
"They stopped replying to my e-mails a while back." The communication, he says, was reasonably good up until Kohler started drilling down into questions of how their claims of a stunning increase in traffic is being represented to advertisers--which, as they say in the newsroom, is the nut of this whole tale.
"Web strategy" is way beyond my technical pay grade. But I am assured that within ten minutes, a publication such as City Pages can tweak its system to properly identify the location of advertisers, etc. If, as it seems here, City Pages and VVM are not providing that, uh, service, this squirrely process smells more deceptive than inadvertent . . . or whatever.
Kohler's version of the turnoff of communication is familiar enough to anyone who has tried to get a comment from, say, a private equity-controlled major daily newspaper. Never mind that media transparency thing; when the barrel is turned on you, stonewall the impertinent bastards.
Kohler is skeptical that City Pages and its parent will be able to step back from this gamed-up image of wildly popular websites. "They've had so much success with Digg. It's like a drug for them, I think. They are so far down that road with this thing, I wonder how they can stop?"
For years I've listened to TV and radio executives spin Nielsen and Arbitron ratings in ways that would embarrass Ron Popeil, all the time thinking, "What science is there to this stuff anyway? How do you know for certain anyone, much less who, was watching/listening?" The irony with the Internet is that you get a much better view of who is clicking in, when, for what exactly, and where they are geographically.
The average advertiser may not yet be up to speed with the geographical "metrics" of where all these "impressions" are coming from and what real value they are to his business, but revealing breakouts like this are part of the great educating process.
"The other angle I find interesting," says Kohler, "and I think you can find out, is who is the original source of [City Pages Blotter] stories? A lot of their stuff looks like reporting that's been grabbed from somewhere else, like Bob Collins over at MPR, re-written with some snark and then 'Dugg' as their own."
Jimmy writes: "For what it's worth, here's what could be a deliciously ironic quote from Voice CEO David Schneiderman, after he agreed in 2005 to step down to President of the Internet Division (I say could be because I still don't quite get all this alleged Digg skullduggery) when The Voice was swallowed up by New Media to become what many regard as the Clear Channel of so called 'alt weeklies.'":
"As for me, I am excited about the prospect of leading the effort to build a robust and successful web platform for the new company. The Internet will be a critical part of our future and it is essential that we use the talent and resources of the combined company to become important players in that world. "My immediate goal is to grow our online audience by utilizing our existing resources, and to break new ground in delivering fresh and compelling content to an ever-expanding audience in any way they wish to receive it. "I am sure most of you are aware of the bizarre charge that this merger will mark the end of alternative journalism. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Both Village Voice Media and New Times have earned a reputation for producing first-rate journalism. Both companies support and encourage their journalists to expose corruption, hypocrisy and incompetence wherever they find it. It defies logic to assert that those traditions will be undermined or abandoned as a result of this merger. In fact, I fully expect them to be strengthened."
Now the original post . . .
[UPDATED]: Local statistical marvel Ed Kohler has a fascinating--investigative--piece up on The Deets, breaking out at what first glance looks like excruciating detail about how our local alt weekly, City Pages, and its parent company, Village Voice Media, have been gaming the popular Digg.com website to create the appearance of vast amounts of new traffic (i.e. "impressions"), which in turn supports claims they can then make to advertisers.
City Pages' Blotter, written by one person, has gained--according to these numbers—tens of thousands of new readers in just a couple months. Moreover, Kohler claims this is systematized from Village Voice Media papers around the country.
Kohler's portrait is damning in the extreme.
I'm tracking Kohler and will add ASAP. (See below). But here's a snippet:
Is Digging Part of the Job for Village Voice Media Employees?
CityPages Blotter writer, Emily Kaiser, appears to have been brought under Jen Boyles’ Digg wing and is now actively digging her own stories (and stories from other VVM properties) after Jen submits them. Here’s a breakdown of what Emily has dugg to date:
"They stopped replying to my e-mails a while back." The communication, he says, was reasonably good up until Kohler started drilling down into questions of how their claims of a stunning increase in traffic is being represented to advertisers--which, as they say in the newsroom, is the nut of this whole tale.
"Web strategy" is way beyond my technical pay grade. But I am assured that within ten minutes, a publication such as City Pages can tweak its system to properly identify the location of advertisers, etc. If, as it seems here, City Pages and VVM are not providing that, uh, service, this squirrely process smells more deceptive than inadvertent . . . or whatever.
Kohler's version of the turnoff of communication is familiar enough to anyone who has tried to get a comment from, say, a private equity-controlled major daily newspaper. Never mind that media transparency thing; when the barrel is turned on you, stonewall the impertinent bastards.
Kohler is skeptical that City Pages and its parent will be able to step back from this gamed-up image of wildly popular websites. "They've had so much success with Digg. It's like a drug for them, I think. They are so far down that road with this thing, I wonder how they can stop?"
For years I've listened to TV and radio executives spin Nielsen and Arbitron ratings in ways that would embarrass Ron Popeil, all the time thinking, "What science is there to this stuff anyway? How do you know for certain anyone, much less who, was watching/listening?" The irony with the Internet is that you get a much better view of who is clicking in, when, for what exactly, and where they are geographically.
The average advertiser may not yet be up to speed with the geographical "metrics" of where all these "impressions" are coming from and what real value they are to his business, but revealing breakouts like this are part of the great educating process.
"The other angle I find interesting," says Kohler, "and I think you can find out, is who is the original source of [City Pages Blotter] stories? A lot of their stuff looks like reporting that's been grabbed from somewhere else, like Bob Collins over at MPR, re-written with some snark and then 'Dugg' as their own."
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
That's a great article. City Pages and VVM deserve to get ripped a new one over something like this.
Bloggers have known for some time it is very easy to game Digg (there are literally thousands of Digg rings floating around the vast tubes of the Net) and I'm surprised it has taken this long for any sizable entities to have figured it out.
Now excuse me while I go Stumble that article.
LAMBERT: As I say, I'm no tech wizard. But ... if true ... how does group of papers with a supposedly techno-hip readership expect this to slide forever?
Posted by: Matt Gamble on February 5, 2009 at 10:53 AM
When did this become a trade journal? The relevance of this to me as a media consumer is...?
LAMBERT: The appearance of perfidy and lack of transparency in "alternative" media ...
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 5, 2009 at 11:28 AM
This is a great article - inside baseball or not.
I have often wondered if the inability of newspapers to monetize their web presence was actually advertisers realizing they have been getting screwed for years by the newspaper industry.
Why should web ads be that much cheaper than a hard copy? Not having the numbers in front of me, I believe the Strib's page hits are in the range of their circulation.
I think the answer is: advertisers have actual data to see what they are getting for their "buy". Instead of salespeople doing their snow - er, SALES - job, telling Best Buy what the impact of their advertising is, there is hard, cold info in the way of clicks.
I'm not one of the insiders that tend to post here, nor am I an advertising expert (and undoubtedly am simplifying things), but it seems to make sense to me.
Given that fact, will VVM and City Pages attempt to skew page hits really work in the long run? When advertisers aren't getting the clicks they expect, the ad rates will fall right back to earth.
LAMBERT: Along with my bafflement that anyone bought off the Nielsen or Arbitron "demos" -- without heavy negotiation -- it's an open secret that that CPM talk from newspaper sales guys often obscures the obvious reality that almost no one reads the paper from cover to cover. Obviously advertisers buy for placement, but unlike the web where a click is a click, how do you ever prove that "X" thousand eyeballs gazed across your ad?
Posted by: Pat B on February 5, 2009 at 12:41 PM
I'm sure the vast majority of those participating in it are not using their actual names on Digg, thus making the scam a bit harder to discover. Oh sure Digg would find them and they'd have their accounts deleted at some point, but Digg isn't in the business of tying together these transgressions and actively reporting on them. They'd simply delete the profiles and that would be that. So I would guess that VVM thought that the risk was slight, and contained, enough that it was worth the substantial reward of increased ad revenue.
LAMBERT: But is it worth the embarrassment?
Posted by: Matt Gamble on February 5, 2009 at 12:43 PM
Certainly no surprise here. The hubris, certainly, but that web sites tout unique visitor totals as a sign of online prowess and higher rates? Par for the course.
Gaming Digg or Google SEO ... what's the difference? Digg may bring story spikes via an intermittent fire hose, but SEO brings a long, steady flow from a garden hose.
Deets is the exception that admits, freely, that two-thirds of its viewers come from outside the state: http://www.thedeets.com/advertise-here/
Click on "statistics" on this strib page and see no mention of how many visitors come from outside the market. http://www.startribunecompany.com/mediakit/online.php
Same with twincities.com: http://extra.twincities.com/media_kit/overview.htm
The answers, as Ed at Deets points out, is geotargeting ads. However, for local sites, this is a much tougher sell as with geotargeting *any* web site *anywhere* can reach Twin Cities viewers. Advertisers then are able to target niche audiences (via hobby, interest sites) than the traditional "local" sites.
An example: Dick's Sporting Goods advertises metro locations on espn.com -- which targets Twin Cities viewers -- rather than the sports sections of Twin Cities newspaper and TV sites.
LAMBERT: I'm getting an education in "geo-marketing" today. I appreciate the wisdom of the techy masses.
Posted by: new media guy on February 5, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Jim, I think this was a "trade" journal way back when Brian wrote about the media for www.rakemag.com and before that at the PP. Brian's a media reporter, and a good one. (Oh yeah, this blog's head says "Brian Lambert on Media and Culture", which is a pretty good clue.
BTW, this is a national story, not just a local. It's already made the national journalism press.
LAMBERT: I think that settles that.
Posted by: Tom Bartel on February 5, 2009 at 1:13 PM
Brian, on the other hand, Spot - whose blog shows up on a City Pages blogroll - has noticed a definite uptick in traffic from City Pages in the past couple of months. Anecdotal, but still there.
LAMBERT: Good to know it's working for someone. Are you hiring?
Posted by: Spotty on February 5, 2009 at 1:15 PM
But is it worth the embarrassment?
Short answer? Probably. I can't imagine City Pages is feeling any less of the ad decrease as any other paper, and the chance to substantially increase ad revenue across their brand is something VVM probably saw as too good to pass up. If advertisers aren't going to pay attention to the metrics, and Digg will only delete profiles without a second thought what is the worst that could happen?
Just the very nature of the issue (how many people really understand, let alone care, about online metrics, ad rates and social media like Digg) is bound to not interest many readers, thus the risk of being caught and having to deal with a fallout were probably not all that great.
LAMBERT: I got a tip. There may be another shoe to drop on this one.
Posted by: Matt Gamble on February 5, 2009 at 1:58 PM
Well, Tom, mark me down as properly admonished. But, speaking only for myself, as usual, I've really never read Brian's excellent blogs and preceding newspaper column for ad sales arcana.
I'm not in the business of either buying or selling ads. I realize that you are and no doubt find this Digg gaming expose riveting and giddily shot through with schadendreude.
And all due congratulations to The Deets for his diligence. But as a consumer of media in spite of the ads, I care about this Digg gaming even less than I ever have about Nielsen and Arbitron ratings.
As for the national ubiquity of the story that you allege, Romenesko's got the Deets story up on his blog, which is a trade journal, Brauer had it up this morning. And that's all I'm seeing via Google.
But, hey, I'm not arguing that as a mere consumer of media I'm right to not to care and that as an owner and seller of ads you're wrong to care madly and deeply.
I guess, beyond just feeling annoyed at your doctrinaire sarcasm and condescension, I am still awaiting something more than a glib kiss off line as to the larger relevance of The Deets' scoop beyond the gotcha' factor to someone who's not in the business of selling or buying ads.
What's this mean down the line for readers?
LAMBERT: Well, speaking for myself, if there is any significant revenue accruing from these inflated on-line numbers, (I doubt it, at least in VVM's case), yet another reduction in revenue could have reader repercussions. I don't know. I just find the ham-fisted duplicity -- from any organization that is in the business of scolding others for ... ham-fisted duplicity --- kind of irresistible.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 5, 2009 at 6:32 PM
For what it's worth, here's what could be a deliciously ironic quote from Voice CEO David Schneiderman, after he agreed in 2005 to step down to President of the Internet Division (I say could be because I still don't quite get all this alleged Digg skullduggery) when The Voice was swallowed up by New Media to become what many regard as the Clear Channel of so called "alt weeklies":
"As for me, I am excited about the prospect of leading the effort to build a robust and successful web platform for the new company. The Internet will be a critical part of our future and it is essential that we use the talent and resources of the combined company to become important players in that world.
"My immediate goal is to grow our online audience by utilizing our existing resources, and to break new ground in delivering fresh and compelling content to an ever-expanding audience in any way they wish to receive it.
"I am sure most of you are aware of the bizarre charge that this merger will mark the end of alternative journalism. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Both Village Voice Media and New Times have earned a reputation for producing first-rate journalism. Both companies support and encourage their journalists to expose corruption, hypocrisy and incompetence wherever they find it. It defies logic to assert that those traditions will be undermined or abandoned as a result of this merger. In fact, I fully expect them to be strengthened."
LAMBERT: Ha! Thanks, Jimmy.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 5, 2009 at 7:11 PM
The sad thing is that, if City Pages simply parsed out the traffic from various locations, the paper could open up new possibilities for ad sales rather than the local focus CP hews to. It would seem that retailers like Target and Best Buy be more likely to take interest in a site that draws from local AND national audiences? And if there are consistent patterns to the traffic, CP could reach out to local advertisers in other regions as well. This is a painfully short-sighted example of "web strategy," plain and simple.
LAMBERT: "Short-sighted" seems kind. I prefer "ham-fisted duplicity", or "gaming".
Posted by: Rich Goldsmith on February 6, 2009 at 10:40 AM
Not sure I understand the Digg gaming entirely, but if it's something done to artificially inflate a Web site's traffic claims, this makes me wonder about StarTribune.com. Haven't their Web "hits" long been out of proportion to other metropolitan newspapers? As in, way more than bigger papers in more heavily populated markets? Maybe there is some Digg stuff going on with that too, even though we like to flatter ourselves that we're a more literate, more informed, more curious and more tech-friendly populace than most cities.
LAMBERT: I've taken a couple calls from people looking at that. How much different is it from offering three day a week "subscriptions" at next to no cost and tallying that up as legitimate "circulation"?
Posted by: Craig Plumfagen on February 6, 2009 at 6:21 PM
The Strib has been gaming the system for years, most egregiously since it adopted the policy of posting one article over a series of pages -- i.e., if you want to read the whole article, you have to click through to multiple pages, and the more clicks, the higher the ad fee. I know most sites will do that for longer stories, but how many times have you clicked "Continue to next page" only to find that the article has ended and all you see is the writer's contact info?
I'm pretty sure there's something hinky in their auto-refresh policy too. They must get an extra hit every time a page refreshes, otherwise there's no reason to refresh the page in the middle of a story, which happens all the time.
LAMBERT: I'm so out of it with this stuff I can't even pretend to know what questions to ask. But that's why I admired Kohler's piece. The obvious irony is that -- unlike TV and radio rating bullshit -- you can actually track this stuff, if so inclined.
Posted by: Patrick on February 7, 2009 at 1:17 PM
In my ongoing effort to "get" this story, I noted that there is at least one business that quite openly offers as a service the very crime that has so many of your jockeys in a sweaty knot: http://www.matrixmt.com/viral-marketing-b.html
"Promote Your Website Virally on Digg.com, Reddit.com, StumbleUpon and More!"
matrixmt.com/viral's ad copy reads a lot like the Deets expose, replete with colored charts and graphs that show similarly dramatic spikes in visitors to City pages thanks to their viral methodology. I dunno'. Look into it. Maybe City Pages is a client.
What this story lacks, from the perspective of a non-wonk, is contextualizing. This still emerging world of journalism and commerce seems to still be developing accepted norms and business practices.
From reading some of the chatter over at Bartel's site, the water appears to be as turbid as the instant dudgeon is turgid. it's all so "bloggy," feeding off each other with minimal efforts made to advance the story with some actual reportage.
Of course, it would help if the boys over at CP would man up and return your calls in the manner they expect the subjects of their stories to return their calls. But it has been ever thus in the journalism profession.
LAMBERT: The Schneiderman quote you found is all the "context" I need. Hypocrisy is always news. But sure, the internet is all about inside-baseball cults peeling onions. The rest of us can wait and be educated by what is finally spit out.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 7, 2009 at 1:18 PM
Gee. Jimmy yawns, sniffs, then gets pwnd by Bartel, then goes into librarian mode and tries to win the day.
Talk about your media and "culture"!
Posted by: bertram jr. on February 8, 2009 at 11:48 AM
Right, I feel you, bro'. But that my point was merely that I'm still unclear of what you and your man, Kohler have here is, in fact, hypocrisy.
LAMBERT: Would you prefer something snappier? Like, "Maximum exploitation of arcane metrics"?
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 8, 2009 at 3:51 PM
Yawn...smack smack...have I missed anything here? Oh, I see the awakening of BL to the future engine upon which journalism in the future will be powered--by online advertising.
It's been fun to read around and see the various blooms of eureka, which is understandable since it is so small and new to the eye, but wonderful to behold the learning process in action--and the timing could not be better, eh? Hats off to you and Jim for the solid research and coverage of The Deet's fine post.
In a related topic--where've I been? Sorry I missed all the action these past three weeks, but when word was out that you were gone, I dropped my feed of mspmag and didn't look back, at least until The Deets mentioned you had called him. Good to have you and the crew back to read.
LAMBERT: Don't go away. I'll alert you to change.
Posted by: The Other Mike on February 9, 2009 at 9:26 PM
In my ongoing effort to "get" this story, I noted that there is at least one business that quite openly offers as a service the very crime that has so many of your jockeys in a sweaty knot:
Are you trying to claim that as long as you can pay someone to do something then it must be ethical? That is one heck of a slippery slope you'd be taking.
Posted by: Matt Gamble on February 13, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Well, Matt, this isn't my blog. But, okay, no, I'm not "trying to claim" anything.
The point of my post from which you cherry-picked that quote is much the opposite; that I have precious little clue if what has all you bloggers staggering to the feinting couch is a big deal, or not. I cited that ad merely as something that leaves me further confused. But that was clear in my post where I was asking for more context within which to assess Kohler's arcane (for me, anyway) analysis. I recall going to say something to the effect that it seems to this non web wonk that this is a new business frontier where mores, ethics, best business practices, whatever phrase you prefer, are still emerging and seeking consensus. Nothing that I've read since has disabused me of this impression. Because, so far, all I get is a lot of blogosphere echo chamber reverberation.
Butt, hey, Matt, if you've got something to add, I'd be delighted to read it.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 13, 2009 at 5:48 PM
In all fairness, I gotta' say, your man, Kohler has a much more relevant and funnier scoop in his on-going obsession with City Pages on his now pay-to-play, Rob Blogojevich-like website about CP's ludicrous sales staff written restaurant reviews.
Granted, who eats at these joints more than trade-addicted ad peddlers. But, my gawd, their "reviews" should be written in crayon. Truly hilarious, albeit with an after taste of sadness.
LAMBERT: I admire your persistence on this one. And I believe the San Francisco Bay Guardian was kicking those restaurant reviews around last week.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 17, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Well, I don't read the San Francisco Bay Guardian (or City Pages or The Deets). Actually, I read about it on Brauer's blog. But since I sniffed at all the dudgeon over this gaming of Digg business, I felt an obligation to praise Kohler's less arcane expose.
Good luck on the old neighbor. If only I remembered how to switch my car radio from FM to AM.
LAMBERT: What? Your car isn't get an internet stream via iPhone?
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on February 18, 2009 at 11:41 AM