Saturday, March 15, 2014

Media A-Changing

I may not have noticed if I wasn't sick and lying in bed surfing the Internet a lot, but my blog post on Herc's quotes got a lot of attention. 



I mean, I figured it might be on a message board somewhere, with a link to this blog and then people would discuss it here. But there isn't a single comment on that post on SV. The story on the MLS site has around a hundred (and counting!).

Maybe people didn't comment here on SV or even come over, though both the articles included the link, because the quotes used were so numerous and complete, they didn't feel they had to bother. 

Who knows. It's not that I'm mad, but it's more that I'm noting how things have changed. It used to be that soccer fans would check several places for bits of news and post them to other fans via message boards, but now regular websites have editors who search the web for those kind of stories. Whether it's an article written about what a soccer player posted on Twitter, or what a freelancer posts on her blog, they're on it to make a story out of it. 

Incidentally, some fans have really reacted to Herc about the quotes on Twitter, wishing for him to tear his ACL, even. Part of me thinks it's because of the way the stories were packaged. I put what Herc said on my blog without a lot of comment, but both articles presented it as "ooooooh! Look what "inciendiary" "calling out" Herc is doing".  That's teeing it up to provoke.

Then people wonder why players don't want to say anything non-generic to the press. 

So folks, how do you like the media shift?  Thoughts? 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Personally, I think it's proof that Herc was right about Galaxy fans being apathetic. :) But seriously, folks...

I've rarely posted comments to any article I read, soccer or otherwise, so maybe I'm not the right person to ask, but I think it comes down to discovery of the content and how strong the community is for a particular site.

I discover articles via RSS mainly and, along with Sideline Views, get feeds from Stephen Goff's Wash Post "Soccer Insider" blog (I'm a DC United supporter), Soccer By Ives, and Fox Soccer. My unread count for Fox is so high that it often seems too intimidating to even read that one. But I don't think most use RSS; it's probably more common for others to discover via twitter (I find some things there also), facebook, or by going to the site directly to scan article titles.

In terms of commenting, it's regrettably more likely for people to comment where they read the content than by clicking through to the actual source (just plain laziness), although it does surprise me that you didn't get any comments at all. On the other hand, the NBC Sports article only has 3 comments right now, so they (or the "ProSoccerTalk" blog) aren't getting much interaction either. MLS must be well-optimized (SEO? via twitter?) to get the word out for their content. I find it likely that a Galaxy supporter site/blog that has a ton of readers probably linked to the MLS article, which drove many of those commenters there.

So I don't know if any of that's helpful, but I hope the lack of comments doesn't discourage you from posting. I found Sideline Views some years back (don't even remember how) when both you and Luis Bueno posted. I've always enjoyed reading the articles. If you keep posting, I'll gladly keep reading. And hopefully remembering to comment from time to time...

A.C. said...

Dan, thanks for your comment. I will try to post more regularly.