Athletic, Axios talking merger?

[Severian]

put down anyone who has more Twitter followers than you.

Do people here actually flaunt they have more Twitter followers than others? That's some dumb shirt.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Do people here actually flaunt they have more Twitter followers than others? That's some dumb shirt.

I don't know about that, but Twitter followers is the only metric that matters to The Athletic, so it's at least timely in this thread.

 

[Mr. X]

Twitter followers is the only metric that matters to The Athletic

Are you serious about that? If so, what do you base that on?

 

[Screwball]

They've hired people (at least in part) because they have a lot of Twitter followers. But the most important metric at The Athletic is subscriber conversions.

 

[tapintoamerica]

They've hired people (at least in part) because they have a lot of Twitter followers. But the most important metric at The Athletic is subscriber conversions.

Meaning the % of those who sign up for the free trial and then ante up for the longer term?

 

[Screwball]

Meaning the % of those who sign up for the free trial and then ante up for the longer term?

For the individual writers, it's more about how many non-subscribers click on a story, can't read it, and sign up for a subscription in order to read that. (Our place looks at that too, but it's paramount for a website that claims to be ad-free.)

 

[Sports Barf]

Where did I say don't react on this board? All I said was I've seen a lot of overreactions to this headline. I didn't say the overreactions were all on this board or that people shouldn't post here.

I'm just saying read the article, not just the headline. It doesn't sound like that big of a deal.

Yeah, no big deal. Not like the SEC just put out a buyer beware warning about SPACs or nothing

 

[Sports Barf]

They've hired people (at least in part) because they have a lot of Twitter followers. But the most important metric at The Athletic is subscriber conversions.

They hired a Carolina Hurricanes writer who has a shirt ton of followers but 75 percent of her tweets are just insane weirdo crap that has nothing to do with hockey and she thinks she is hilarious

 

[Fredrick]

For the individual writers, it's more about how many non-subscribers click on a story, can't read it, and sign up for a subscription in order to read that. (Our place looks at that too, but it's paramount for a website that claims to be ad-free.)

Who is the grand leader of journalism who decides what is important any more? Fredrick says this way to judge a writer's value is ridiculous. So some consultant thinks a reader of The Athletic reads the first few paragraphs and says, "By gosh I HAVE to read the rest of this story. Sign me up!" Color me skeptical. It'd be so nice to be a consultant and be able to fool so many suits into $$$$.

 

[Sports Barf]

Keep on writing columns that get 250 views, old man.

Do you even Google Analytics, bro?

 

[Sports Barf]

Who is the grand leader of journalism who decides what is important any more? Fredrick says this way to judge a writer's value is ridiculous. So some consultant thinks a reader of The Athletic reads the first few paragraphs and says, "By gosh I HAVE to read the rest of this story. Sign me up!" Color me skeptical. It'd be so nice to be a consultant and be able to fool so many suits into $$$$.

Yes that's actually exactly how it works Frederick. Welcome to content marketing in the 21st century.

But no, go ahead and keep writing 2000 word columns about the hot dogs in the Montreal Forum press box. Because CONTENT!

 

[Severian]

I don't know about that, but Twitter followers is the only metric that matters to The Athletic, so it's at least timely in this thread.

Imagine needing hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers just to get a job.