Who is Vox Media writing for?

Reviewing the Alexa stats at least reveals that for once, my estimation of which are marginally worthwhile and which are absolute trash is shared by the rest of the web:

508 global, 270 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/theverge.com
851 global, 256 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sbnation.com
1194 global, 389 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vox.com

Thus concludes the top 500 bracket!

1993 global, 708 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/polygon.com
3206 global, 792 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/eater.com (actually this just boggles my mind that they're in the US top 1000 - I guess people just like reading made-up nonsense about food, whatever)
5356 global, 1224 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/curbed.com
5187 global, 2250 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/recode.net
7378 global, 2785 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/racked.com

Granted I only glanced at a couple other site stats, but I'm fairly confident the latter half-dozen are all getting completely pantsed by their topic area competition. So again - who is the audience? What is the game plan?

i think vox media of the big "bag of article" properties is probably one of the most focused on search engine traffic as a gateway point. so like the whole explainer thing etc is look for specific questions people are googling and try to answer those exact questions no matter how stupid they are. from there they then steer you into some "sharable" bullshit and hope to turn you into a carrier to spread the infection to your social media stream.

the reason the front pages make no goddamn sense is they don't think they're an actual "destination" with some sort of overall coverage. they just throw some eye-catching stuff out there all howling for your attention like a bunch of neon signs in some overcrowded shopping district -- its the chum section blown up to a whole page and you drown in it. (polygon and sbnation actually have more coherent front pages because "i want to read about videogames" and "i want to read about sports" make some sense. but who thinks "i just want, like, some shit explained to me, i don't care what shit exactly, it just has to be broken down real good"

I do social media for a restaurant that was featured in Eater last week, and literally 100-200 bot Twitter accounts have shared the story in the past 48 hours. It made me wonder whether the bots were there to help Eater reach some level of engagement stats or click-throughs, and by doing so help establish Eater's ad/advertorial prices.

That said, Eater and Racked and Curbed do have their audiences in their respective industries: at least in my city (although Racked folded here last year) it's the go-to site for openings/closings, sample-sales, etc.

Also, anyone I know in hospitality PR loves these sits to show some "traction."

also i actually sort of appreciate eater in that if i want to find out sort of basic news about which restaurants have closed, which are getting hype, etc. it serves the function just fine. but that model i guess only serves ny and a few other areas which have enough going on in terms of food that it makes sense. if yr in grand forks then you need a qualitatively different sort of coverage.

i could see people identifying with racked as a regular pub, who curbed is beyond me. real estate seems the most servicey of all service journalism

vox is for people whose self-worth is wrapped up in how enlightened their social media sharing makes them seem

eater is one of my fav websites on the internet tho

xpost - Eazy, thanks, that helps explain a lot. I hadn't thought through that second/third order aspect of these things - normal people reading your stuff is only part of the game, and sometimes not even in the game at all. It's easy to imagine hospitality PR folks and their clients feeding off this stuff for metrics, and then the retweeting robots add to the metrics, spiderweb ouroboros etc.

flagship site seems to have its intentions split down the middle: half the content is SEO content farm stuff for when clueless people want to ask google something basic, half is supposed to be slate/atlantic-level articles to spread around facebook. i can't speak to the former but they've been freakishly successful at the latter ime. i see them frequently getting shared as a legitimate + informed source.

not that any slate/atlantic-level stuff is great but vox's reporting is about as reliable as any standard clickbait garbage website like viralnova or dailyelite or w/e. full of pure misinformation, distortion/complete misunderstanding of sources. lazy as fuck. bummed that j*n b*is is one of their founders bc it's a shit website.

xp a million posts happened as i wrote this

there are a bunch of twitter bots that tweet out gawker stories before we even put them on social media so i doubt that the bots eazy is talking about were planted by vox/eater. websites all over the net obv do all sorts of stuff to juke stats (spin media routinely bought traffic when i was there to meet goals promised to ad partners) but using twitter bots would be pretty inefficient/worthless way of doing that. not that i've quite figured out who/what all those bots are for but i don't think it's for the source publications themselves.

maybe PR people set up the bots to just automatically juice the outlets they regularly work with?

xp Yeah, I was just speculating as far as why these bots are there. The ones I'm finding this week all have exactly the same layout (this one is a good example), with bios written in the same layout: e.g., "Social media junkie ✦ Love travel photography ✦ Actor ✦ Lake lover ✦ Startup Adviser"

Wow that bot's stolen profile photo taught me something interesting

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/actress-kinda-alloush-i-maintain-support-syrian-revolution

Kinda Alloush! I'm assuming her name is not pronounced "kinda a louche."

Recode does actual reporting fwiw

Does anybody else feel disappointed at the quality of our daily content geysers?

I despair about it honestly. Like, things have felt locked in the hot-content loop for what seems like a long time now. Just the idea of trying to do something worthwhile on the web feel quaint.

it's especially fun when you realize there's no reason for it to ever get any better

the los angeles Eater site is pretty decent, and it's a lot better since the previous editor left or was fired after her participation on a terrible Bravo show

Eater does food roundups for each hub airport which are very useful.

it's the only way i'm really able to keep up with restaurant openings and closings tbh. better as a food site than most others. i guess chowhound might be ok if i felt like reading the forums. thrillist is the chive of food and lifestyle sites.

thrillist is the chive of food and lifestyle sites.

― nomar, Sunday, January 3, 2016 7:06 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think i interviewed for a tech job with them once back in the daaaay. i had no idea who they were and when i went home and looked them up i thought "wow this sucks" but also i thought they wouldn't like last the year, and i'm continually shocked they still exist whenever someone mentions them. i guess they "pivoted" a few times from the weird email-newsletter/exclusive coupon deal lifestyle groupon amex black bullshit they were trying to pull back then, but still...

(oh and as a general proposition i think tablet-style windows 10/pinterest forever-mismatched-tile layouts will absolutely _scream_ "lol 2015" a few years down the line as a truly all-time terrible design trend)

i've enjoyed the stuff i've read on vox but wasn't aware it was a kinja style media thing with multiple subsites... thought it was just dumbed down politics writing, which i am unconditionally in favour of. the few times that i've seen their front page it was pretty horrendous though

(oh and as a general proposition i think tablet-style windows 10/pinterest forever-mismatched-tile layouts will absolutely _scream_ "lol 2015" a few years down the line as a truly all-time terrible design trend)

― big WHOIS aka the nameserver (s.clover), Sunday, January 3, 2016 9:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hope so

Eater coverage is heavily dependent on the strength of the city editors - some are great, some are nearly worthless. But on a national level they've been running some of the strongest food coverage in the country, especially Bill Addison's work and some of the features. A piece on Arabbers went in depth on something nobody else was covering, Choire Sicha's profile of Ina Garten was great, Ryan Sutton's piece on Danny Meyer ending tipping at his restaurants was probably the best of any publication, etc.

it's especially fun when you realize there's no reason for it to ever get any better

yeah that's the thing. it can inspire heavy nostalgia for when the web was pretty terrible, but at least interesting, and might have developed into even more interesting things

i mean i know recode is actual reporting bc a friend of mine works for them & thats what all his articles are ... scoops & quotes & all the shit you want from a newspaper. not rehashed reaggregated shit

David Roberts is the only guy on Vox I've ever deigned enough attention to actually read

"Explainer" journalism always felt like a pretentious wheel reinvention to me, and I find Vox's style both presumptuous and condescending.

Nerdsplaining the news, basically.

Meh
http://www.voxmedia.com/a/year-in-review-2015

But on a national level they've been running some of the strongest food coverage in the country, especially Bill Addison's work and some of the features. A piece on Arabbers went in depth on something nobody else was covering, Choire Sicha's profile of Ina Garten was great, Ryan Sutton's piece on Danny Meyer ending tipping at his restaurants was probably the best of any publication, etc.

otm

This today is good reporting from Eater. Simple story, big news for their audience in Chicago, and good context built around the announcement.

oh my god the front page on re/code is impossible. I just did a grep for "Mossberg" to find one of his recent pieces and Firefox is like "there's two of those!" but NOWHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM

searching on a page via the browser is such a shitshow these days

they should just make every page a PDF, it would save bandwidth

sad truths in 2016

whaaaat

http://www.wsj.com/articles/vox-hires-choire-sicha-to-oversee-partnerships-with-facebook-snapchat-1455714001

so weird

We're living in a content bubble. back to the old blogs soon, blogs that didn't make money, blogs only written by people with day jobs. Unfortunately, in the meantime, the incredibly stupid sounding headline structure adopted by data-driven content farms has infested everything.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/18/i-yelled-black-lives-matter-at-a-trump-rally-this-is-what-happened-next/

https://twitter.com/broderick/status/712355010219286528

SB Nation now virtually impossible to read on a real computer. "Mobile adaptive" design is now officially "laptop oppressive"

this fucking newspeak is puke

https://boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/jobs/179360?gh_jid=179360#.VvlQKRIrKAw

People Analyst
at Vox Media (View all jobs)
DC Office

As the People Analyst, you will be responsible for maintaining the data and functionality of Vox Media’s people systems. Ideal candidates for this position will be passionate about using systems and data to drive people decisions and process across the company. This position will report to the Total Rewards Manager and will be based in Washington, D.C.

What you’ll do:

• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to identify the metrics needed to assess the impact of people programs on business outcomes.
• Lead all HRIS reporting; prepare and analyze various regular and ad/hoc reports (i.e. people dashboard metrics, headcount reports, EEOC reporting etc.)
• Develop internal processes and controls to support an analytics-driven organization.
• Recommend streamlined people processes through data automation, and collaborate with People, IT, and other departments to execute.
• Maintain the data and functionality of Vox Media’s HRIS, Namely, as well as the ATS, Greenhouse, and other People systems as applicable.
• Act as the project lead for any People system upgrades or implementations.
• Provide data for all internal and external audit requests related to People data. Collaborate with audit lead and other parties to ensure best practices are created and followed
• Audit data within People systems to maintain data integrity and ensures that system controls and processes meet all internal and external requirements.
• Serve as a liaison with the IT and Finance teams on People systems and technology matters.
• Partner with People Ops, Payroll, Finance to pro-actively drive the development and direction of People system initiatives to improve process efficiency, reporting capabilities and data integrity.
• Provide support to employees of Vox Media for People systems-related questions.
• Perform ad hoc duties as assigned.

idgi... that's indistinguishable from every corporate HR job posting ever?

is everybody now doing find+replace "HR" for "People" so it comes out sounding vaguely insane?
"People Ops" wtf

Sort of surprised that in 2016 Buzzfeed is a name I trust for journalism. Vox, however, remains worthless.

I really hate the current system of how articles reach us though, it's like all the newspapers have competing cornerboys with competing loudspeakers and our relative choices are determined by which is loudest or most piercing.

okay so I went back to their job pages to find more new media terribleness et voila

https://boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/jobs/195385?gh_jid=195385

Create Your Own Job
at Vox Media (View all jobs)
Anywhere

...
If you’re interested in working at Vox.com, we want to hear from you! If there’s a specific open position you’re interested in, please apply there. But we’d also like to build our bench, so to speak, so when there’s an opening, we have incredible people top-of-mind. And we realize you may have a better idea for our next position, or even our next section, than we do! So if you want to pitch us on a role, please submit:

it's all around you

what's wrong with that

it's kind of a half-assed wavering between the corporate "put your resume in the system in case something pops up" with some "if you can dream it, maybe you can make it!" icing put on top

let's get real, they're not going to hire a rando to write a column based on a pitch. if you're pitching a cool new idea, it's to a person, not to an inbox

and by inbox I don't mean an email inbox, I mean an online resume management system

yeah. on the other count see http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/46-times-vox-totally-fucked-up-a-story-1673835447

(i think they've gotten slightly better since but...)

its the buzzfeed model, but with "syria facts" in place of "cat gifs"

ok, so the van der werff piece seems...bad.

i don't have a problem with "syria facts," tho.

cock

that deadspin article is 100% of my experience with actual vox articles. they're as well researched as any bottom of the barrel clickbait sites but they have a professional logo and ezra klein or whatever.

I wonder if the phenomenally incoherent nature of the Vox Media properties is just the inevitable result of trying to force "smart" bloggers to write what essentially amounts to clickbait, with editorial QC to meet the standards of the latter. The null hypothesis is that this is not the case, and maybe I am just an old dad who doesn't get the Internet any more.

The majority of content on the flagship seems to be aimed at fourth and fifth graders; the mundane phenomena and news stories they "explain" frequently make it transparent that they have hard quotas to hit and the editors will let just about anything qualify as a post as long as it adheres to house style. I'm not exaggerating; it genuinely reminds me of the news digest magazines we would get to read and discuss once a week in the closing years of elementary school.

https://mobile.twitter.com/fivek/status/778246489910816769

Can think of a couple of examples...

I suppose there might have been a "in the post-war era" qualifier that got lost in editing? there's still Francoist Spain and the Estado Novo in Portugal, but they both "took" power before the war I guess.

I guess some people would see the establishment of the fifth republic in 1958 as being an example of the far right taking power?

there's some very decent journalism buried in here, but the subheads drove me insane. This conversational, occasionally sarcastic, trying-to-be-funny style might be tolerable in small doses, but seeing one after the other just piled up like this feels like drinking a bottle of corn syrup.

http://www.theverge.com/a/2016-best-of-verge

A common criminal was convinced the US government used a secret device to track him down. He spent months prison trying to prove it. Turns out, he was right.
The house bet big on Tesla – did it win?
West Virginia: wild, wonderful, and hiding a vision for the future of public transportation.
New York's Penn Station has been called "the worst place in the world" and that's probably an understatement. Time for an update.
Sure, you can make an app for that — but no one wants to pay for it.
Google's DeepMind took on Go champion Lee Se-dol, and humanity lost.
Too many dudes have colonized the final frontier.
Why yes, we would like to come spend some quality time with FLOTUS.
$15,000 seems like a reasonable amount to pay for a model lightsaber.
What stays and what goes on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter? And who decides?
He wasn't feeling well. So he scrubbed his body with bleach and ate feces pills.
The cost of calling home from prison can feel like highway robbery.
We lived to tell the tale. His business plan didn't.
The App Store changed how we used our phones. Now it's time to change the App Store.
Losing weight now means pumping food out of your stomach with a tube.
Cars of the future might decide who lives, and who dies.
Hiring spies to investigate your foes doesn't make you look guilty at all.
Real talk: this pilot is no longer a pilot.
It's so nice to meet you. Now pay me.
From Brooklyn to Bangkok, the conquest of Edison bulbs, refurbished wood, and minimal design.
A lot of nature documentaries are closer to fiction than fact. And that's what makes them so addicting.
In a world of cheap computer tricks, puppets still rule.
Forget a new bus line, communities across the country are turning to Uber for all their public transportation needs.
The day they killed jack.
Step away from your Kava drink.
What if you could talk to the dead in a chat box?
Facebook said it was unaware of a program that tracked the location of its users. But we caught Facebook using the program to catch an intruder in Mark Zuckerberg's office.
Uncovering sexual harrassment and misconduct, at one of the nations's most prestigious academic organizations.
The thin polyurethane line.
You know we're on the brink of the apocalypse when the beaches have run out of sand.
For too many, social media has become a space for abuse. How do we transform it into a space of activism?
We need to talk about Casey Affleck.
Surprise: disruption and mental health care just don't mix.

poll time imo

Sure, you can make an app for that — but no one wants to pay for it.

the ones in this format always make me think of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF6cBf133rA

New York's Penn Station has been called "the worst place in the world" and that's probably an understatement. Time for an update.

^^^this is the most egregious one on a few different levels imo

Time for an update.

you'd never heard of the show kilroy -- but it is amazing *cupping gesture*

The Verge started as a mid/long form article site and they keep trickling other types of content into the mix, but I've seen a few like this lately that make me wonder what they're up to: http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/13/14268906/chainsmokers-new-song-paris

It's like a mix of the "youth listens to old album and article revels in naivety about context" articles done elsewhere and the sarcastic back-and-forth that's sometimes funny but their version of it is completely inscrutable to me.

It's been over a year. Let's see:

657 global, 301 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/theverge.com
1989 global, 551 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sbnation.com
1481 global, 584 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vox.com

Thus concludes the top, uh, 600 bracket. It gets worse!

2175 global, 745 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/polygon.com
5135 global, 1044 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/eater.com
8604 global, 1749 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/curbed.com
7695 global, 2407 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/recode.net
23732 global, 5715 US: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/racked.com

I think I've grown to like The Verge more over the last year, but that's probably mostly stockholm syndrome.

The Puppy Bowl, explained

25 Super Bowl commercials that explain Super Bowl commercials

Liberals are the new Tea Party
ABOUT 6 HOURS AGO

vox.com: a list of ideas you threw away a week ago

https://twitter.com/ashleyfeinberg/status/828992942207594496

the verge is for people who like SCOOPLETS

I think I've grown to like The Verge more over the last year, but that's probably mostly stockholm syndrome.

― The beaver is not the bad guy (El Tomboto), Saturday, January 14, 2017 8:11 PM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, I feel like I enjoy the occasional article and then Nilay Patel shows up and makes me shake my head

@voxdotcom
A defense of Betsy DeVos
https://t.co/MWQlI4p7Gv

Indeed, as the alternative schooling movement spreads, one can imagine it attempting the same kind of capture that every other large industry aims for in its relations with the federal government.

oh indeed, indeed, maybe one should try to imagine that some more

yo vox your corporatist roots are showing

Joel and 9 Others ‏@joeljohnson 3h3 hours ago
@johnjcook @reckless @pkafka @benpopper I was there. Direct ad pulls and interrupted deals were about a million. More importantly: who cares

Ashley FeinbergVerified account
the people who experienced it firsthand deny it, seems like it’s worth an update especially when you’re giving gg-ers a false sense of power

v convincing. it wasn't what u said but more importantly, who cares. also let's not say things that make gg-ers feel powerful.

yeah, sorry, the thread got dropped and I linked to the fun potshots part

https://twitter.com/johnjcook/status/828979581923241984

John Cook
‏@johnjcook
@reckless @pkafka @benpopper our '14 revenue was $45 million. GG started in august and didn't become a thing until october

so there's no way, unless their total revenue was incredibly inconsistent throughout the year, that they were disrupted by gg so badly they dropped that much money

tbf yes, all of these people that are no longer employed by a company that no longer exists are not presenting a unified front

also fucking yeah, make sure a number that seems large is real when it could provide encouragement to the dickhead anti-social justice keep on trumpin' brigade

i'm just saying that the only reason why that number is wrong is because it either is or isn't wrong, not because it might embolden some anonymous online dudes and saying "who cares" is the kind of thing that sets my internal veracity bells off.

the only reason why that number is wrong is because it either is or isn't wrong

this is actually a very reasonable thing and based in the idea the number matters

in fact, it does matter as a gauge of scale, but on the other hand, the people using it as a gauge of scale will deride any correction to the article. cook's right -- it doesn't matter, the $7 million number is out there, if anyone wanted to be emboldened by it, they have their number and they'll deny any correction

there aren't any reasonable people out there who think "gamergate was bad, but if they had a multi-million dollar effect, then maybe I will reevaluate my stance"

http://www.heartofthedreaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/trustnoone.jpg

imo that's a weakness of the "facts matter" brigade I am a part of too regularly

they only matter if:
- they are relevant
- they're part of a reasonable argument or narrative, single facts are ignored by people
- you're arguing to people who will pay any attention to you whatsoever

http://gamedesignreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/dontbe.jpg

imo the greatest science is recognizing biases and emotional responses, very underappreciated

that's what all these dickhole data journalists think

touche

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/

“No,” said Nick Steves, the pseudonym used by one NRxer well-known within the movement. “It will only lend false credence to the misleading facts and outright errors you will inevitably print irrespective of my involvement.”

Asked what he thought I would print, Steves explained that “115 IQ people are not generally well equipped to summarize 160 IQ people” and that only one journalist, Vox’s Dylan Matthews, had “come close to permitting NRx to speak for itself.”

160 IQ people who reference their IQ, as if citing that number wins every argument, are too stupid to understand what a 160 IQ is.

"Nick Steves"
"Dylan Matthews"

xp otm

I would say we need a eugenics program to keep anyone who goes around professing a 160 iq from reproducing, but they're doing pretty well with that on their own.

I can't believe I never started a thread on what a shit show wired magazine is

who is writing for vox media?

http://deadspin.com/leaked-data-show-vast-majority-of-sb-nation-page-views-1803138754

like no kidding SB nation is an aggregator

I just assume all those volunteers are big Jon Bois fans and are just contributing their FanPosts as a sort of sweat-equity Patreon to keep the Jon Bois Content Dream alive.
I mean who would not support this guy: https://www.sbnation.com/2017/7/24/16003968/17776-questions-and-answers

Suggest Ban Nation?

it is boggling to me that there is still any audience for the verge or re/code since they are both terrible, overly earnest tech / nerd verticals that cover almost nothing that their competition doesn't, and the UX is still shit whether you're on mobile or desktop, etc etc.

I guess I still keep loading the verge in a tab from time to time because I hope one day it will improve despite knowing that the vox media house style is always going to grate and only 1 out of 40 times am I going to see anything I'm remotely interested in actually reading. It would be nice to see the whole farm pivot away from being so fucking watery and ditch the pretentiously neutered prose, but that seems highly unlikely. If it ain't broke don't fix it, I guess.

went back to the verge again, they're asking what people would want in a membership / premium version (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!??!??!!?!!?!?) and they couldn't even cover the new Star Wars trailer properly. Also, hilariously, almost none of the ads loaded in Safari on mobile. everybody loses!

The entire Vox Media enterprise makes it crystal clear that the only thing that matters is how easy it is to buy and sell ads while keeping overhead (i.e. staff writer wages) as "reasonable" as possible. Whether or not I, consumer, click on the ads clearly has no bearing on the system; whether the content is remotely interesting to anyone is the most trivial concern. It's like the iMDB model exported to news verticals. If anybody who actually understands this shit first hand would care to educate me as to why I'm wrong I'd love to learn.