“Best on Megamind” or as a good idea to “kill” a promising site in a couple of months
I am one of the devoted fans of Megamind, I really like this playground, so I think a lot about how to make it better. This article - my second attempt, the first, in my opinion, has been very successful .
Very little time has passed - in the region of the month, since the administration of Megamind has made revolutionary changes, the main result of which has been the introduction of a fair rating system. Today in the top lines of the list began to flaunt those who deserved it by right - the authors of interesting and informative articles published on this site.
Megamind is a separate site, but thanks to the banner “The Best on Megamind”, we can observe from both GT and Habr that interesting things have appeared on this platform, and in one click make a transition to the material you like. Very comfortable right? Users often do not have time to look through the entire list, but it is very difficult to overcome the temptation to get acquainted with the best materials. For authors, minus the Megamind - while a small number of published articles - becomes a big plus. Publishing an article on Megamind, it is easier to be in the "Popular for a day" section, which means that your creation will be for the whole day in front of the visitors of GT and Habr, and in the section "The Best on Megamind"! Is this not a reason to post your article right here, because not only people interested in the business side of the issue, but also a wide circle of users from other sites will see it? Wow, isn't it?
We look further - if you believe the window “Popular for a day” “we have 17 popular articles in a day, truly not a bad result! Especially given that summer Friday is not the best place to write an article, and in general today is the middle of July - the height of the holidays, in which any normal IT specialist thinks about the warm sea, the beach with white sand away from our borders and problems.What if next year only the Northern and very Arctic will remain accessible from the oceans ...
')
The picture looks very beneficial for investors who invest in a resource, but is it attractive for companies that have paid blogs on the site? Just a few simple questions can break the idyll: Why did not one of the “popular for the day” articles by the end of the day come close to even a thousand page views?The next day, some of them reached the 2000 mark, but this is not too good . Why for the whole day 13 articles were published, and as many as 17 are popular in a day? Why almost half of the “articles” were written by one author, why did the number of advantages that his publications earn very well and quickly, regardless of the time of publication, reach the magic number SIX for the site and then progress slows down dramatically? Why do many “popular articles” consist of 5-6 paragraphs and are not burdened with neither typography, nor graphics, nor too much sense? And the main thing - if everything is so beautiful, then why are both independent authors and corporate blogs still trying to publish their materials exactly corresponding to the subject of Megamind on Habré and even GT?
Let's try to turn on your brain and deal with it in more detail, and at the same time take the risk of giving unsolicited advice to the administration of the resource. Yesterday’s story of the transfer of hubs to neighboring sites and the reaction to it. As always, I welcome the statement of your ideas about the arrangement of our favorite site and the best ones will add to the text of the article, of course, with indication of authorship. The result of the article will be a poll where you can vote for proposals to improve the site.
Even a cursory analysis of the list of “Popular articles per day” shows that at least 9 out of 17, which is more than half, are not. Sorry, but these are not articles. This is news, moreover, not characterized by high quality of presentation. In addition, the overwhelming number of them was written by the same person not participating in the user rating, and their content is 30-60 percent links to previous news, on the same topic, posted on the same site, in most cases by the same person.
It seems that there is nothing wrong with the fact that the resource positioning itself as the “territory of developers” publishes news from the IT world. Is not it? Yes, and they are engaged in their publication, it seems mostly not bloggers, but “specially trained people for this” are professionals in their field. All right, but the question arises how strong they are in this kind of creativity, because the news is very specific content that is not accepted to be mixed in one heap with analytics on seriousand even not very portals.
Let's take a closer look at how bad the practice of mixing news and copyright material is:
Another nuance that directly affects the attendance is the wrong angle of the news, which does not coincide with the target audience. What I write next is not “watered,” this is business and nothing but business. If you read the news of Megamind for several days, it becomes clear that they are trying with all their might to highlight everything bright and beautiful that is happening in the Russian IT segment and, at the same time, about what happens on the other side of the cardon, either not to write at all, or to submit events as an appendage to the great Russian achievements, or to pick up news with a negative connotation. I do not knowand do not want to guess whether this is a consequence of the life position of a limited circle of people, who account for more than 95 percent of the news on the Megamind, or an editorial task, but this is a BUG. Its result has a bad effect on the popularity of the site, I will explain why.
The target audience of this site are IT specialists. This part of the country's population is the most educated, proactive and involved in connection with the outside world. Even if the recent studies of Levada are taken for the truth and consider that among the population of Russia at least 80 percent dream of a special way and choose spiritual braces instead of expanding contacts with the outside world. These are not empty words, I rely on the results of my recent article on a nearby GT resource.
It shows that no more than 20 percent of habrayuers believe in the “special way”, the rest understand that the current vector of the country is not optimal and are ready to look for other ways of development. The Habr sample is much more representative than the Levada sample nationwide.
With endless news in the future, that the government will allocate so many millions for another import substitution project, you don’t add much optimism to readers, because they understand that most of these good intentions will remain, at best, to the banal "cut" of funds allocated. If you want to instill optimism, then choose for the news topics the positive events that have happened, but rather write about this article. After all, the same people who are writing “news” today can write excellent articles, I know that for sure. The truth is not 10 pieces a day, but maybe this is for the best?
Printing news for the tenth time on the “law of oblivion”, and informing that it has finally been passed by our glorious parliament, do not limit yourself to enthusiastic comments by prominent Duma members and officials, maintain impartiality - either no comments at all, or the points of view of both parties. News - not the author's articles, where subjectivity is often even welcome. Otherwise you cause, in the majority of your readers, irritation. Yes, most of them will keep silent, but next time they will read the newsand at the same time articles in another place. You need it?
What to do, because the news is far from annoying to everyone, and with proper selection can even attract new users? I will try to offer a few recipes:
So, what exactly is happening now and why is the popularity of the Megamind diminishing? And you, stand in place of the average habrauzera. He looks from Habr at the window “The Best on Megamind”, follows the link, but instead of the article falls on the badly composed news, the text of which annoys him, and which consists of references to previous news in many ways duplicating this one! Do you think that this motivates him strongly to click on the link next time, and in general to pay attention, in the future, to this panel. The best way to win the user’s trust is to not deceive his hopes and offer bullshit instead of the best articles. Do not chase the quantity. If there are few interesting publications per day, then the user, as the best, will be offered only one really interesting, plus a couple of the last published ones, than a dozen low-grade ones. Then he will take into the habit of using the service of cross-platform links.
I am sure that even those simple actions described above will quickly help to increase the popularity of Megamind, and the administration will not have to transfer articles from Habr that are clearly not intended for it, for example, a couple of those that were published there only yesterday and caught my eye:
Tax gopher. Features of the application of the simplified taxation system in the work under contracts with Apple, Google and others.
Technical interview: five ways to scare away the applicant / five ways to infuriate the interviewer.
But at the initial stage will have to be transferred by force. Should be tough. If we allow such a clear violation of the theme of the resource, then rasterization of the parent site did not make any sense at all and would bring nothing but harm.
A little more about offtopics - I myself often touch on sensitive issues, but with all my strength I try to do it correctly and strictly in relation to the main topic of the article. I express my gratitude to the administration that it allows discussions that are conducted within reasonable limits.
However, at times such examples of folk art come across, that you wonder! Not to be unsubstantiated, I cite the title of the article published yesterday at Resource for True Developers in the headline of the paragraph, which, by the way, was recently removed as non-core and not related to the development of microcontroller programming hubs and many other popular ones due to the inconsistency of topics. According to the administration, this article and especially its title, apparently, is the pinnacle of the art of development, in contrast, for example, to the hub Programming rototekhnika. Unfortunately, not all readers were in solidarity with such an approach; rarely can you find articles on Habré that could gain seventy minuses on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The title, of course, should be bright, the content can be moderately provocative, but if the authors will feel at ease on the website that the writers will have a place in the newspaper “Tomorrow” will hardly add to their popularity in the eyes of your target audience.
Well, now the promised survey:
Very little time has passed - in the region of the month, since the administration of Megamind has made revolutionary changes, the main result of which has been the introduction of a fair rating system. Today in the top lines of the list began to flaunt those who deserved it by right - the authors of interesting and informative articles published on this site.Megamind is a separate site, but thanks to the banner “The Best on Megamind”, we can observe from both GT and Habr that interesting things have appeared on this platform, and in one click make a transition to the material you like. Very comfortable right? Users often do not have time to look through the entire list, but it is very difficult to overcome the temptation to get acquainted with the best materials. For authors, minus the Megamind - while a small number of published articles - becomes a big plus. Publishing an article on Megamind, it is easier to be in the "Popular for a day" section, which means that your creation will be for the whole day in front of the visitors of GT and Habr, and in the section "The Best on Megamind"! Is this not a reason to post your article right here, because not only people interested in the business side of the issue, but also a wide circle of users from other sites will see it? Wow, isn't it?
We look further - if you believe the window “Popular for a day” “we have 17 popular articles in a day, truly not a bad result! Especially given that summer Friday is not the best place to write an article, and in general today is the middle of July - the height of the holidays, in which any normal IT specialist thinks about the warm sea, the beach with white sand away from our borders and problems.
')
The picture looks very beneficial for investors who invest in a resource, but is it attractive for companies that have paid blogs on the site? Just a few simple questions can break the idyll: Why did not one of the “popular for the day” articles by the end of the day come close to even a thousand page views?
Let's try to turn on your brain and deal with it in more detail, and at the same time take the risk of giving unsolicited advice to the administration of the resource. Yesterday’s story of the transfer of hubs to neighboring sites and the reaction to it. As always, I welcome the statement of your ideas about the arrangement of our favorite site and the best ones will add to the text of the article, of course, with indication of authorship. The result of the article will be a poll where you can vote for proposals to improve the site.
Is everything written an article?
Even a cursory analysis of the list of “Popular articles per day” shows that at least 9 out of 17, which is more than half, are not. Sorry, but these are not articles. This is news, moreover, not characterized by high quality of presentation. In addition, the overwhelming number of them was written by the same person not participating in the user rating, and their content is 30-60 percent links to previous news, on the same topic, posted on the same site, in most cases by the same person.
It seems that there is nothing wrong with the fact that the resource positioning itself as the “territory of developers” publishes news from the IT world. Is not it? Yes, and they are engaged in their publication, it seems mostly not bloggers, but “specially trained people for this” are professionals in their field. All right, but the question arises how strong they are in this kind of creativity, because the news is very specific content that is not accepted to be mixed in one heap with analytics on serious
What is the similarity between the pairs of “flies and cutlets” & “news and analytics”? Both should not be confused.
Let's take a closer look at how bad the practice of mixing news and copyright material is:
- News is often evaluated not by how well written it is, but by how important it is for the reader of the event itself. The consequence is that it is advantageous to publish the sensational news first, albeit sacrificing quality, but collecting a big crop of pluses “for actuality”.
- For the above reason, the news often “slaughters” by the number of pluses quite good author articles. At the first stage of publication, articles against rating news do not fall into the “best articles” section. The first hours of the life of the article are very important, because then it can just get lost under the mass of the same news. The authors get upset, seeing as their material, for the preparation of which they sometimes killed more than one day, disappears amid reprints from RBC or Vedomosti sites,
and this is, in the best case, done in five minutes. For manyespecially beginners,this discourages publishing for a long time, some are forever going on to Read only. Less authors -> less readers -> less advertisers -> less money for resource development .. - On the basis of news, you can write interesting articles, but many do not allow moral principles to do this, because the topic is already dragged up in the news. Thus, the site again loses unique content. Let's compare: Here is a deep analysis of this topic by a new author, by the way from the sandbox, but here is one of the regular news on this topic . Do you feel the difference?
- Time spent on disputes in the comments to news articles, a person could spend on reading and discussing an interesting article.
Even familiarizing yourself with the news you should not forget which segment of the audience you work with.
Another nuance that directly affects the attendance is the wrong angle of the news, which does not coincide with the target audience. What I write next is not “watered,” this is business and nothing but business. If you read the news of Megamind for several days, it becomes clear that they are trying with all their might to highlight everything bright and beautiful that is happening in the Russian IT segment and, at the same time, about what happens on the other side of the cardon, either not to write at all, or to submit events as an appendage to the great Russian achievements, or to pick up news with a negative connotation. I do not know
The target audience of this site are IT specialists. This part of the country's population is the most educated, proactive and involved in connection with the outside world. Even if the recent studies of Levada are taken for the truth and consider that among the population of Russia at least 80 percent dream of a special way and choose spiritual braces instead of expanding contacts with the outside world. These are not empty words, I rely on the results of my recent article on a nearby GT resource.
It shows that no more than 20 percent of habrayuers believe in the “special way”, the rest understand that the current vector of the country is not optimal and are ready to look for other ways of development. The Habr sample is much more representative than the Levada sample nationwide.
Future news is a fairy tale.
With endless news in the future, that the government will allocate so many millions for another import substitution project, you don’t add much optimism to readers, because they understand that most of these good intentions will remain, at best, to the banal "cut" of funds allocated. If you want to instill optimism, then choose for the news topics the positive events that have happened, but rather write about this article. After all, the same people who are writing “news” today can write excellent articles, I know that for sure. The truth is not 10 pieces a day, but maybe this is for the best?
Printing news for the tenth time on the “law of oblivion”, and informing that it has finally been passed by our glorious parliament, do not limit yourself to enthusiastic comments by prominent Duma members and officials, maintain impartiality - either no comments at all, or the points of view of both parties. News - not the author's articles, where subjectivity is often even welcome. Otherwise you cause, in the majority of your readers, irritation. Yes, most of them will keep silent, but next time they will read the news
Harmful advice?
What to do, because the news is far from annoying to everyone, and with proper selection can even attract new users? I will try to offer a few recipes:
- It is best to separate the news feed from analytics. In no case can not mark the news in the windows like "Popular for the day," and even more so, "The best on Megamind".
- In order for news not to leak into analytics, post-moderation should work well. Especially at the initial stage.
- Today, more and more serious sites in general turn off the possibility of evaluation and comments for news, believe me, this is not surprising. In any case, they should not compete with real author articles for drawing attention in the “Popular for a day” section.
- It is better if the news is addressed by “people not participating in the rating”, but the Golden Rule should be introduced for them - the presentation of information in the news should be objective. Either any comments, or it is necessary to bring arguments of all parties to the conflict.
- Not bad more attention paid to foreign news, the world is great.
- Less is more! The practice of replacing news with author articles is deeply flawed. Let the analytical material will be less, but the increased quality will encourage more unique users to read it. If people without a rating publish at least one interesting, even if translated, article, the resource will undoubtedly win!
- News should not raise the rating of the person who writes them, as they add, in the case of news, often not for good information, but only for relevance - the speed of reaction. If you want to raise the rating, write an article based on them instead of news. Analyze the history of the issue, analyze the consequences.
- If those who write news today have no connection with the administration and do it solely for their own purposes, then it’s worth limiting their enthusiasm. I propose to introduce a limit - one publication per day on one resource. Perhaps the number of publications will decrease, but the quality will increase, because attention will need to be attracted to one single article or news - this is a good reason to devote more time to it and try to stand out not only with a catchy title, but also with interesting content.
Nothing is earned so much and is lost as easily as trust. To use it, you need to learn to appreciate.
So, what exactly is happening now and why is the popularity of the Megamind diminishing? And you, stand in place of the average habrauzera. He looks from Habr at the window “The Best on Megamind”, follows the link, but instead of the article falls on the badly composed news, the text of which annoys him, and which consists of references to previous news in many ways duplicating this one! Do you think that this motivates him strongly to click on the link next time, and in general to pay attention, in the future, to this panel. The best way to win the user’s trust is to not deceive his hopes and offer bullshit instead of the best articles. Do not chase the quantity. If there are few interesting publications per day, then the user, as the best, will be offered only one really interesting, plus a couple of the last published ones, than a dozen low-grade ones. Then he will take into the habit of using the service of cross-platform links.
I am sure that even those simple actions described above will quickly help to increase the popularity of Megamind, and the administration will not have to transfer articles from Habr that are clearly not intended for it, for example, a couple of those that were published there only yesterday and caught my eye:
Tax gopher. Features of the application of the simplified taxation system in the work under contracts with Apple, Google and others.
Technical interview: five ways to scare away the applicant / five ways to infuriate the interviewer.
But at the initial stage will have to be transferred by force. Should be tough. If we allow such a clear violation of the theme of the resource, then rasterization of the parent site did not make any sense at all and would bring nothing but harm.
Palantir, PayPal mafia, special services, world government as the pinnacle of art development.
A little more about offtopics - I myself often touch on sensitive issues, but with all my strength I try to do it correctly and strictly in relation to the main topic of the article. I express my gratitude to the administration that it allows discussions that are conducted within reasonable limits.
However, at times such examples of folk art come across, that you wonder! Not to be unsubstantiated, I cite the title of the article published yesterday at Resource for True Developers in the headline of the paragraph, which, by the way, was recently removed as non-core and not related to the development of microcontroller programming hubs and many other popular ones due to the inconsistency of topics. According to the administration, this article and especially its title, apparently, is the pinnacle of the art of development, in contrast, for example, to the hub Programming rototekhnika. Unfortunately, not all readers were in solidarity with such an approach; rarely can you find articles on Habré that could gain seventy minuses on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The title, of course, should be bright, the content can be moderately provocative, but if the authors will feel at ease on the website that the writers will have a place in the newspaper “Tomorrow” will hardly add to their popularity in the eyes of your target audience.
Despite the problems of rapid growth, I think this site is very promising and I wish success to its creators in the development of popularity and monetization. Very few resources annoy their users with annoying forms of advertising less than Habr! Already for this you need to love it and try to make it more interesting with your articles!
Well, now the promised survey:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/292752/
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