Another pet peeve

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Ad clicks and brand impact are in two completely separate areas of influence. Ad clicks are only a measure of initial interest in a product or service. What compels clicks doesn't necessarily promote brand impact. So when I ask you about branding and you want to talk Cost Per Click (CPC), that's like me asking you "What's your favorite color?" and you responding, "To get to the other side." It's an answer to a question that was never asked.

And people ask me why their media property gets pigeonholed as a direct response vehicle. Grrr...

Sick of flagrant pageview whoring

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I'm really starting to tire of feature articles that can be displayed on one web page taking up five instead (or worse, put into a "slideshow" format). It's flagrant pageview whoring. I mean, come on...Does Cracked.com's content strategy ever deviate from the following?

  1. Develop linkbait Top 10 list
  2. Write a page's worth of copy
  3. Pretty it up with inane images and spread it out over five pages
  4. Post to Digg
  5. Profit!

Of course, I have no objection whatsoever to making money, but not every piece of content on the web is suitable for a slideshow format that tries to turn a single pageview into 10. And there are a bunch of sites out there (I'm looking at you, CNN) that are either stretching content that ought not to be stretched, promoting slideshows in an over-the-top manner, or using every marginally-related link opportunity to drive people to streaming video.

Yes, I understand online publishing monetization strategy. The difference is, I understand it well enough to know when techniques designed to boost comScore/Nielsen numbers and to squeeze every last dime out of an audience are done to death.