Weather.com is Out of Control

An article from the Washington Post:

A headline today on Weather.com, The Weather Channel’s Web site, has reached new heights in its absurdity and, frankly, irresponsibility. It’s leading Weather.com down a dangerous path of completely losing credibility as a serious source of weather information.

The headline, “Nor’easter to threaten millions” is stunningly misleading.  Said Nor’easter is forecast to drop one to several inches of rain in New England over the next few days.  But this is not a threatening amount of rain; rather it is a sorely needed soaking as much of this region is abnormally dry and parts are officially designated in moderate drought.

While there is a possibility of some minor coastal flooding in Maine, the storm otherwise poses few hazards.  Winds are not forecast to reach damaging levels. This is a mild and – on balance – beneficial storm for the region.
The headline was clearly not devised to responsibly convey credible weather information, but to simply to monger fear and generate clicks.

This is not the first time Weather.com has taken this approach.  Last spring, after the National Weather Service issued its seasonal forecast calling for a near to slightly below average hurricane season, Weather.com’s headline was “NOAA Report: Hurricane Forecast May Shock You”. Weather.com’s editorial team later dialed back the headline, but only after it was called out by meteorologists on social media.

The Weather Channel openly admits it lures readers to spend time on Weather.com with splashy headlines on topics that have nothing to do with weather.

But Weather.com’s recent tendency to overhype and misrepresent the actual weather – its bread and butter – is extremely disappointing and counterproductive. The hard-working, talented meteorologists who are the face of the network deserve better. And, most importantly, so do its readers.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/10/21/now-more-than-ever-weather-com-is-out-of-control/

I think if we haven't gotten used to this bullshit by now, we're in big trouble.

I mean, Harv, seriously, aren't you in this business? Everybody wants clickbait, clickbait, and more clickbait. I wish Google or Facebook could create an algorithm that would detect how long people actually spent reading these bullshit sites and use it to determine how shitty they are.

Yeah, you don't expect it from Weather.com, but if they don't do it, they'll lose traffic to a weather site that does.

I also want a google algorithm to scan all the words in these articles, cross check them against verified academic journals, and tell me when the articles are full of shit so I don't have to waste my own time looking up shit that I know can't possibly be true.

Google has always used the "time on site" and "bounce rate" to determine rankings.  If you want penalize a sites google rankings (just a little bit because you are only one person) hit the back button after you land on a site that stinks. Google, while totally driven by revenue, knows well that if people don't find what they want when they "google" it, they won't come back.

What is new (brand new as of yesterday) is a google crackdown on excessive pagination - the maddening process of taking a one page article and putting it on 20 pages to drive page views.  It's especially maddening on a phone and the latest version of the google algorithm address it specifically.

The primary motivation for that behavior is ad revenue.  I'd submit that NYSB is different. The first rule of ad revenue is to put a big horizontal at the top of every page, where our header is.  If I made that change today, our revenue in would probably triple. Most of the highest traffic pages don't even have a paid ad above the fold.

It's a game for me for sure. But I'm after engagement.  I want to write stuff that skiers read. Our bounce rate (people who look at 1 page and leave) is around 8%. Most sites are around 30-40% and most blogs are up around 60-80%.

I admit I'm trying to grow NYSB. But I don't agree that the content and headlines are clickbait.

Harvey wrote

I admit I'm trying to grow NYSB. But I don't agree that the content and headlines are clickbait.

No, I mean, you're in this business and you know what they're trying to do. Not that NYSB is clickbait.

They lost creditability long long time ago..

Weather.gov    NOAA best weather without the advertisements

mattchuck2 wrote

Harvey wrote

I admit I'm trying to grow NYSB. But I don't agree that the content and headlines are clickbait.

No, I mean, you're in this business and you know what they're trying to do. Not that NYSB is clickbait.

My bad.

You're right that the pageview model of advertising is killing journalism.

But that model is based on our behavior. As consumers we are no longer willing to pay for legitimate, well-written and researched content. Exhibit A: newspapers are almost extinct. We want our info "free" and on our phones, tablets, laptops. There's no way to stay in business writing quality content.

Take your average NYSB story: Get up at the crack of dawn drive through an intense snowstorm to be at Plattekill for first tracks in some awesome snow.  Take (or get ML to take) some great photos, and publish a story that is of real interest to our audience.  Cost for the day maybe $200, ad revenue generated $5. Hourly rate for writer and photog, zero.  Don't get me wrong I really like it.  But it's not a job.

New York Times is WAY closer to break even than that, but they are losing money too.  They sold the Times building for $1 billion to pay off all the money they lost over the last ten years and now they rent it.

Unofficial Networks is very clickbait driven IMO. And that piece on top EC pow destinations was a joke. Until the average consumer is willing to pay for quality the model won't change.  I don't see it happening.

Harvey wrote

Unofficial Networks is very clickbait driven IMO. And that piece on top EC pow destinations was a joke. Until the average consumer is willing to pay for quality the model won't change.  I don't see it happening.

Unofficial Networks went down the shitter in the last year.
All they do is repost videos with horrible, generic headlines.
Any unique text they do have generally has more grammatical errors than sentences.

BTW I wasn't trying to imply - by posting this Washington Post piece -  that it is in any way news that Weather.com are a bunch of sluts.  I just thought it was cool that the post called them out on it.

The Post, whose longtime editor died yesterday, is one of the few outlets that is TRYING to publish legitmate content, and survive.  They aren't doing any better than the Times in terms of profitability.

Matt you will get a kick out of this. The ultimate in clickbait:

clickhole.com

That's not even one of the worst. I swear, some of them are made completely by computers that don't even know how to put words together.

That was a spoof by The Onion I think.

I'm talking about shit like this, where every headline is just meant to infuriate you, scare you, or get you to click:

http://toprightnews.com/

The worst part is that old gullible geezers click on that shit and believe every word.

Good insight and great job Harv.