We offer a Sphinn newsletter here that has to actually begin going out soon, plus there were some concerns about how Sphinn items are being included in Search Engine Land’s SearchCap newsletter. I have some thoughts on how I’d like to progress with both of these, but I’m looking for feedback. Sound off!
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The Sphinn newsletter I expect will be recap of all the day’s Hot items, picking up from wherever the last newsletter left off. It will be very similar to the Sphinn home page, where you’ll see the title of a story, which is a link to the story on Sphinn, and a description of the story. If we can do it easily, and it doesn’t seem weird in the context of the newsletter, we’ll also include the Topic Type line along with a link to the original news source. Plus, I think we’ll include the Sphinn counts and maybe number of comments at the time the newsletter goes out. Why not link directly to the news source? The answer is the same reason I gave when we launched -- that we have both news story topics and discussion topics, and if you link directly to news stories, it causes an inconsistent experience. You never know if you’re going to jump out of Sphinn or not. These threads cover this more: http://sphinn.com/story/1519 http://sphinn.com/story/125 As I’ve said in them, we did try this -- and it was very confusing. That’s why we added the Topic line with the "Jump To...." link. Yes, I know Digg does it the other way. But did doesn’t do discussions. In addition, we have a lot of discussion going on here. News stories kick off some discussion, but just as they do in some search forums, the discussion can take a life of its own. No one generally complains that a search forum link leads to the search forum thread, rather than jumping out. So I feel pretty comfortable continuing as we’ve been going -- most especially because believe me, when you do it the other way with the inconsistency, it is a bad, bad thing for the user experience. Next, there were concerns raised about how top items from Sphinn are included in our SearchCap newsletter. This covers it in much more depth, including how currently do the SearchCap newsletter. http://sphinn.com/story/1523 The concern was that if you submitted an item to Sphinn, that might make it in the list of Sphinn items we put at the end of SearchCap and thus "steal" or "deny" your rightful link in the headline summaries we do. I’ve had more time now to play with how we list Sphinn items within the SearchCap newsletter. This is what I plan to do. Barry and I will continue to editorially select what goes into the headlines of SearchCap, as we have done. Sphinn will be one of the many resources we use to compile these headlines. If we spot something on Sphinn we really like, we’ll link directly to the source as has been our style in the headline section. That should solve some of the concern people might have had that sending stuff to Sphinn means you might lose some direct link from the newsletter and the associated web page archive of it. Next, we’re going to continue listing top items from Sphinn in addition to the headlines. Several reasons here. First, we do want SearchCap readers to know what’s going on at our social site and promote it to them. Second, Barry and I have a different editorial voice than those on Sphinn. Something that goes hot on Sphinn might not have made the cut for our editorial choices. I make no apology about that, by the way -- editors should use discretion in what they want to pick. But we also know that we’re not perfect, or that others might find something interesting that we don’t agree with. That’s a big part of why we started Sphinn. So including those top Sphinn topics allows for a second voice to come through in SearchCap. That means some search stories we might have passed on will perhaps make it, plus there will be some general online marketing stuff to give SearchCap some flavor. We will remove any top items from Sphinn that repeat something that’s already covered either through a Search Engine Land story or in headlines. For example, here’s today’s SearchCap: http://searchengineland.com/070802-145201.php If you look at that, you’ll see that a story about YouTube marketing was covered on Search Engine Land. That story was also hot today on Sphinn. We didn’t find it through Sphinn, but assume we did. If so, we thought -- cool story! -- and wrote up and article about it. Generally, people like that happening to their stories, as it gives them excellent play on the site. Next, you’ll see in headlines, there’s a link to the UK SEO meet-up. Again, hot on Sphinn today. We didn’t find it through Sphinn, but say we did. We considered it interesting enough to feature as one of our headline choices but not enough to give it a standalone post. And it gets a direct link from there. Now look down at the Hot Items From Sphinn section. These are all things on Sphinn that have not made the cut for a standalone post or to be in headlines. But as I said, we want to feature these topics. Still, there remains that direct link issue. I’d considered doing something like this: + Your Great Article With Link Directly To It (@Sphinn) The problem is, as I played with it more tonight, I found it really awkward to be listing two different links for a topic. That’s especially so when some of those topics will be discussions at Sphinn itself, rather than to news stories. You have this weird situation in that case of running two links to the same place. Why not detect that and figure a way around it? Perhaps we could, but frankly, it’s not worth the effort. So, the Sphinn links in this section will continue to lead to Sphinn. My reasoning is similar than to before. Links here weren’t going to get in before Sphinn if they didn’t make the editorial cut. Now with Sphinn, Barry and I are exposed to even more sources, and if they still don’t make the editorial cut but go hot on Sphinn, they get some exposure via SearchCap albeit with people having to go through Sphinn to reach them. Since they would have had nil exposure before, I feel OK with this. Also remember the "second exposure" situation, where a story might go hot on Sphinn one day, then make the editorial cut for headlines the next. Or it could make headlines one day, then go hot on Sphinn the next. In both cases, the story gets to double-dip a bit on SearchCap (though in a way that shouldn’t feel too repetitive to readers, since the same story will never be listed in both section of SearchCap on a particular day). Finally, even sending people through Sphinn, I’m getting reports of sites getting significant amounts of traffic. So far today, we’ve already pushed out over 500 clicks to other sites. I feel pretty good that we’re giving back plenty to the sites being listed here. In addition, as long as I’ve been covering search, I’ve constantly linked out to sources far and wide, and even if they would be consider competitors. We spend a huge amount of time with SearchCap compiling headlines that do nothing but link out. That’s pretty much my plan. As I said, sound off if you disagree, have suggestions or even if you want to say it makes sense.
Sounds great Danny. I’m excited. Sphinn is rapidly becoming a great (dare I say best?) resource for search related articles and news.
Perfect balance, well put :)
Agreed. Sounds like you’re striving to roll up and share meaningful information through a consistent user experience. I like that approach better than offering a less-than-optimal experience for the sake of appeasing each and every contributor.
When you explain like that Danny makes much more sense! I’m chuffed even to be featured in the sphinn section of the newsletter, sent quite people our way.
No concerns here. I like having both sources rolled up, even though I’ve read all the articles by the time they reach the recap :D
I like it the way you’re planning Danny. It’s better for the publisher though some people won’t think so at first. A prominent Facebook friend unexpectedly linked to the Sphinn page of a submission I made, and it was brilliant. I got more votes and traffic than I would if he had linked directly to my story.
"If we spot something on Sphinn we really like, we’ll link directly to the source as has been our style in the headline section. That should solve some of the concern people might have had that sending stuff to Sphinn means you might lose some direct link from the newsletter and the associated web page archive of it." Thanks. This was my concern. And not just for the link value, but also the usability side of clicking on the link and NOT going to the article first, but rather, being sent on a ride to Sphinn first, (stop for a drink), and then go to the article :) Also, I’ve heard some feedback about some folks not visiting SELand because of the belief, founded or not, that the same items are located here. If you can stress the differences between both sites and the value proposition of each one, separately, that might help.
oops, put comment in wrong thread! moved it now :)