Time.com - Cheeky?
by Katharina Scholtz
Time dared to rate the top 25 blogs on the net. That’s right – mainstream (old) media judging the value of the new - how very cheeky. Not only did the results of their judgment generate lots of talking and link backs amongst the blogging community – but the way they displayed it has caused a fair amount of controversy as well.
It does seem that Time designed their list to generate more page hits by making us click through the review of each blog in a way that really is rather irritating.
Valleywag and Web2.oh…really? both commented on what seems to be a way too transparent tactic to get page hits (one of them was nominated and the other not, so bias seems to be nullified). Describing the list as “a user-experience mess– mostly because it puts its own interests above the users”.
Web2.oh…really? went on to discuss the other not-very-user-friendly aspects of the page (including a block of logos that doesn’t click through to the blogs).
Valleywag went ahead and posted their own easily readable version of the list on the page – which probably wont take traffic away from the Time list but is an entertaining kind of ‘up yours’ none the less.
So here’s the question. Time is benefiting from short term traffic, which will be pretty numbers to show to their advertisers, but their reputation might take a bit of a knock (even if it is just amongst bloggers). Is the short term traffic worth it when a ‘traditional media’ source like Time relies so heavily on its brand perception to draw more traffic to its site?
The often used argument that traditional/slash mainstream media has more quality content becomes kind of nullified when they make reading that content an irritating process.
So the lesson to be learned here? When marketing online remember that the user comes first. Tactics to increase traffic (or page views in this case) are only a good idea if they work for your user. I doubt the discussion around Time’s top 25 list will do serious damage, but if this is the way they plan to practice in the future the negative comments might ad up.
Your brand perception is made up of every experience people have with your brand, and short term traffic really isn’t worth long term damage. Admittedly, for Time the balance between keeping your advertisers and your readers happy is a tough one, but they seem to have leaned too far towards the advertiser interests on this one.
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