News section

J

JibUrNut

Member
I feel like ever since the website updated to the current home screen, the news section of newschoolers has gone down hill. I think there a few things that may be the root cause of this:

1. Some of the really well written news pieces receive little to no traffic.

2. Half of the news pieces are links to other websites or what seem to be random post such as this: https://www.newschoolers.com/readnews/43015/McConkey-Movie-Premieres?c=latest&o=2 or this: https://www.newschoolers.com/readnews/43016/wheres-casg-sundays-its-4-22?c=latest&o=2

Newschoolers use to have a lot more news and a lot more original content. I am not sure but I think the new layout has limited the traffic that the news section gets. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this so we can see some quality news articles about skiing again?
 
I agree with this. I have my homepage configured to show me "What's Hot" in Video and News, and I virtually never get any news. The only time stories pop up is when they're an exceptionally big deal (Voleurz announcing it was ceasing operations, for example), otherwise it's just all videos. I'm sure that there is good written content out there, but it isn't being broadcast in the same way that visual content is. I think it's obvious that people care more about/produce more photos and videos, but it would be cool if there was more hype surrounding news/articles, etcetera.

Maybe it's because I have my settings on what's "hot" instead of what's latest, but I don't think that just because videos get more traffic they should automatically crowd out news.
 
The entire homepage is basically video these days. Video section gets considerably more traffic than even photo and news combined.
 
So here's the thing -

The decision was made for the new homepage to reflect what it is that people are actually interested in. We used to have lots of news, which mostly was event coverage. We spent a massive quantity of money covering these events, and most of the time this is what is referred to the 'glory days'.

However, I have been watching the numbers for years, as I can see exactly who reads what. Frankly, people stopped giving a fuck about the news we were writing a very, very long time ago. Sure you might have clicked through for a quick second, but then you got bored of the article, scrolled through quickly maybe looked at a photo, glanced at the results and then may or may not have watched the video.

We saw this countless times - the news just wasn't getting read. What we were doing was ramming stuff you didn't give a shit about in your face, and hiding the stuff you did care about.

The reason that you occasionally see news pop up - think facebook interviews, voleurz shutting down, Dave Lesh Exposed, and a smattering of others - is this is actually the news that people give a flying rats ass about. When the news is interesting, it makes it to the top.

The remote article thing is about trying to make sure that here on Newschoolers you can always get the absolute best news anywhere on the internet about skiing. Same logic as allowing Vimeo or YouTube back in the mix - we don't want to exclude good content just because it is at another site.

What we have failed at is properly communicating this. We need more people sharing remote news, and more people who do follow latest news in order to get a few votes into the system.

My best suggestion for you is to try out the Top Rated of the day/week news. That gives you a pretty good smattering of the best stuff out there currently.

https://www.newschoolers.com/news?c=toprated

The main problem though is that Ski Journalism has cancer. Its dying a slow death in a terrible rut that its been in for years. We only get to read the same puff-piece interviews about athletes we already know about doing things we've heard a million times. We get to read event coverage about the same slopestyle course at the same mountain with a slight variation on tricks and one new up-and-comer who 'is blowing up' or whatever other cool word might try to be used.

Newschoolers news program didn't break, we just had the guts to stand up and say "Fuck that, we will not allow the same boring shit to be at the top of our site time and time again. Whether we write it or someone else writes it, we will only show what the people are interested in."

The best thing you can do if you care about the state of news is head on over to the Journalist Network cult.

https://www.newschoolers.com/ns/cult/forum/cat_id/2408/

Request an invite, as we'd love to have you no matter what. We need consumers of news, curators and Journalists alike - as we need to work as a team to fix the state of Journalism in skiing.

In addition, this is why we're injecting money and gear into the system. We have a few people on our top-level journalist program, and I encourage you to share ideas about news you'd like to see. Hopefully we can attract better and better talent, as well as share the nuggets of good news happening around the internet - and form a new world of exciting ski journalism where people actually read the words written vs. just scroll through them quickly.

 
Man, thanks for the comprehensive response. I didn't even really mean to be critical in my post, I was more just sort of lamenting the fact that news never came up, but I appreciate your explanation.

Like you said, I guess one answer is to become part of the solution - that is to say looking at changing the way ski journalism is approached. Anyway man, thanks again, that was excellent.
 
We tend to think deep here at Newschoolers. :)

Two things you can always do at a simple level:

1) Be part of the team that checks the latest news every now and then and upvotes the good stuff.

2) Share good news from around the world of skiing. Check other sites, and when they write something share it on here.

Those two tasks alone even if you don't want to go super deep into the Journalism thing can make a big difference.

 
This was a great decision. Not only does it help awesome content get on NS, but it allows even more views and love for the people that created the content. When the videos are on Youtube/Vimeo it allows a much broader audience to see the content and more people will be willing to click a youtube or vimeo link because they know exactly what it is, whereas if you try to spread a Newschoolers link, not everybody knows what Newschoolers is and might pass up on it because they aren't familiar with where the content is coming from. Lots and lots of people are down with skiing and enjoy it and want to watch videos, but they aren't to the point of joining a dedicated website strictly for it. A casual browse of Youtube/Vimeo is what a lot of gapers do. There are a lot of videos that have been uploaded directly to NS and have also been uploaded to Youtube/Vimeo and the Youtube/Vimeo alternatives have more views than the ones directly uploaded to NS.
 
THere are also TONNES of videos uploaded directly to NS that have way more views than on YouTube / Vimeo. On this note, you have to appreciate the good side of having a community dedicated to watching/viewing content about skiing. Most stuff won't succeed outside the tight-knit ski community, and we can all do a way better job of building the industry as a whole by keeping it closer.

Those gapers should come over to NS, and view a pure skiing experience.

Trust me, holding onto a niche has way more value than being a niche trying to succeed in the larger world. Especially keeping the views within NS - we can build a way better ecosystem of money making for producers than if we let everything out.

However, no matter what our new policy is to make it that NS is a place where you can see all the best videos in skiing. We don't want to discriminate where they are.

Note as well, if your videos are all located elsewhere, you won't have as much success with our revenue generation programs.

 
I agree with everything you stated.

I also agree in the sense that it's easier for the videos to succeed in a niche setting as opposed to fighting against every other type of video out there, but being able to harness the mass traffic of youtube/vimeo AND being able to use that same video on NS can greatly help out exposure. Not to mention youtube/vimeo allow users to favorite/like and subscribe/follow the content. NS needs those features!

most of my videos are uploaded directly to NS and I click ads and donate :)

 
You sir are a hero. :)

The only problem with the external videos is we have less control over them, as such its more difficult to make them work in the system properly, play ads, etc. So its a different thing when they're remote. Plus, people get the habit of watching vids on other sites, and as such don't get addicted to NS and as such contribute less overall to the ecosystem.

Again, we know though that we need to up the ante on some of our offerings. No secret there... however, I'm digressing too much.

The bottom line is that no matter where the content is on the internet, we want it to show on Newschoolers. We at least want you to know that you can come to NS and expect to be presented with all the good stuff from around the interwebz.

 
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