The Secret of Daily Mail's Success...

Sorry to harp on about the Daily Mail website - actually, scrap that, I'm not sorry at all - but it really is becoming such a beacon of excellence for both newspapers, news websites and newspaper executives who are stuck in the pit of trying to justify everything, to everyone, all the time, even though they have no fucking clue what they're actually talking about.

I give you Mail Online publisher Martin Clarke, and his recent address at the Society of Editors Conference.

He said: "Mail Online has succeeded because it does what newspapers have always done, it tells fascinating stories clearly with great headlines, punchy words and brilliant pictures."

Let's take this one step at a time...

"Mail Online has succeeded because...":

* "fascinating stories": Really? Where? A quick look today reveals 13, yes, 13 celebrity-based stories in the top half of the Mail homepage. There are nine 'news' stories in the main section.

* "great headlines": Again, really? Headlines today include: 'Rent boy quizzed by police over claims that husband of honeymoon murder victim paid him for sex sessions', 'Big freeze returns tonight with EIGHT inches of snow and temperatures of -10C on the way, prompting fears it will eclipse the winter of 1962-3' and 'He has an army of liberal millionaire supporters bit WikiLeaks boss is STILL trying to raise £240,000 in cash for his bail'.

Yeah, fuckin' fascinating those Martin...

* "punchy words": See above.

* "brilliant pictures": See below - I'll let you judge.



Now, to all those executives now knocking one off over Clarke's genius thinking and incredible figures on Mail Online, I give you the response.

* "Please, stop wallowing in a vat of your own clueless thinking and realise that whacking celebrity names in headlines, along with words like "rent boy" and "sex sessions" (preferably together) does not indicate some kind of genius online thinking, it indicates a blatant attempt to produce plastic figures based on wankers who know nothing about anything reading shit stories."

If that is the future, then you can stick it right up your arse and we should all quit now.

Thank you Mr Clarke for killing our industry. Still, you'll be long fucking dead with millions in the bank when the final person left trying to preserve some sort of integrity is handed a P45.

Still, at least he has some sense of how shit his own site is.

"I don't think we'll ever win any web design awards."

No shit Sherlock.

Mail order from the Daily Mail website?

Now, the Daily Mail website is something I've written about before.

Namely, HERE and HERE.

However, a recent article from The Guardian made me revisit it today.

Basically, as we already knew, the site has become quite a big player as far as 'news' sites go. I use the word news in inverted commas because, quite frankly, the lack of news on the site is my major gripe - and possibly the obvious reason behind the site's success.

While you do get some stories, you don't really get news, as such, in any prominent position, or in other words, anywhere that may attract a real news reader.



That is, of course, unless you count anything mentioning I'm a Celebrity, X Factor, chavvy footballers or benefit cheats as high-ranking on the news agenda, which sadly, I don't.

So I thought I'd just write this as an adendum to my previous post if you like, to say that the Mail website is the X Factor of news sites.



Yes, it appeals to the masses, and you can't knock it for what it does, it does well.

But when you look at it for any actual value, it's dog shit.

Sadly, this is something we're now seeing mirrored across the DMGT group's regional newspaper arm, Northcliffe.

ThisIs sites across the land now bear a little section on the bottom of their front pages titled 'SHOWBIZ'.

Basically, this is simply an excuse to post headlines that will attract the chav Googler to the site.

But while it may bump numbers for the site - the below is from www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk but it is everywhere - it has absolutely nothing to do with that area.

Just as the Daily Mail website has absolutely nothing to do with news.



I compare this bandwagon thinking to what the likes of Northcliffe are doing to our newspapers.

They have something that works (name me a site doing ONLY solid, regularly-updated local news that is falling in visitor numbers), yet far from being happy with that, they need to have more, more, more, and some complete fuckwit has told them Google looks in headlines and picture captions for searched terms and the even bigger dipshit who actually makes decisions has jumped on the bandwagon.

As with their newspapers, they'll soon release (too late, I would assume) that this will only work in certain circumstances and the gains will be limited.

Just as cutting staff back continually will when the papers are folded, despite still making a healthy profit.

Still, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, especially when the old tricks brought in 30% profits for them knowing fuck all...

Here's the link to the previous Daily Mail website article again if you missed it the first time!

And don't forget, follow me on Twitter and you'll get a mention every now and again!

@haplesshack is my address. You can debate my 'the Daily Mail website is dog shit' verdict on there right now if you like...

Press Release of the Week That WILL Feature in The Daily Mail & Daily Express

I know 'Press Release of the Week That WILL Feature in The Daily Mail & Daily Express' is not a feature of this blog, but I had to create one in honour of this release.

It's pure genius...

Here is the unedited copy (so the PR firm should send me at least a tenner):

Manchester United and the Cardiff Devils Ice Hockey Team face a boycott by Muslim fans because the devil emblems included in their club insignia could be outlawed in Islam.

Already religious leaders in Malaysia have forbidden Muslims to wear Manchester United shirts because the red devil emblem is forbidden in Islam.

The Johor Religious Council adviser and the Mufti of Perak have told fans that images of crosses, liquor brands and devils on football shirts are insulting to Allah.

This could spread to Britain which is home to 2.5 million Muslims.

Secret Millionaire star Paul Ragan and new owner of the Cardiff Devils denies there is any problem.

“We have a predominant ‘devil’ in our logo but the last thing in anyone’s mind was to cause any religious offence. No one has ever complained about our club name or our badge,” he said.

Cardiff has by far the largest Muslim population (4%) in Wales. In the Principality overall Muslims account for less than 1 per cent of the population (22,000 people).

Manchester United have devoted considerable effort in building a fan base for their merchandise in Malaysia. They toured there last summer and have a five-year sponsorship deal with communications group Telekom Malaysia.

“There is no excuse for wearing such garments because it means, as a Muslim, you are idolising the symbol of another religion,“ said Datuk Nooh Gadot, the Mufti of Johor.

The badges on Barcelona, Brazil, Portugal and Northern Ireland strips all feature crosses.

Who wants odds on it being in at least one national and the topic of conversation on EVERY talk-based radio phone-in in the next 24 hours?

bets to the usual address... Cash in advance you understand.

When searchable headlines go mad...

The plight of the sub editor is an oft-heard tale; there aren't enough of them, template pages are killing the art, etc etc.

And while sharing their pain to an extent, it's something that has never really hit home, not being a sub.

But gradually, over the years of growth of news on the interweb, I have come to relate to their issues.

Google. Google. Google. That is all we seem to here now from web gurus across the news globe. Your stories must be 'Googleised', or 'Googleified', or whatever the term is that they shout in my ear and which just doesn't seem to register, having not read 'What iPCmacbookpad?' this month.

Yet this morning, two things on the Daily Mail website caught my eye and summised my growing affection for those bods who sit and correct our stories day in, day out, for little recognition (let's be honest, the amount of changes they make to some copy, they deserve a byline).

Firstly, the Daily Mail site was among the first to cotton on to the benefits of being found by Google, i.e. appearing first in any search gives you the overwhelming majority of clicks from searchers.

So it adapted the way it wrote headlines for stories appearing online, which is fair enough.

However, with other news outlets catching up fast, the Mail has continued to grow its efforts, and quite frankly, the site is becoming one gigantic Google hub.

Repeated links are EVERYWHERE - see a grab below, which shows only a small section of the front page.



I realise it's not very clear, but basically, the Daily Mail homepage seems to have become a page containing hundreds of stories, with hundreds of links to those stories, everywhere!

Apparently, this will score massively with Google, but at what cost?

I do wonder whether anyone reading this site is with me when I say that I get quite frustrated with the same stories appearing everywhere when I'm looking for something else to read?

I've read the top story, so why link to it another four times on the homepage, in prominent positions? It baffles me.

But that is not the only 'Googleisation' tool that concerns me. The tailored headlines are now so ridiculous they take up half the page!



That headline, to me, is just too damn long.

Yes, I can see that includes loads of things people might be searching for; I can understand (despite the protestations of our web chap that it is dreadfully complicated) that people probably do search for 'Kylie concerts' and 'cocktails' a lot - and probably together a surprising amount too.

But was it really worth it for a four-deck headline that just looks a bit silly? I'm probably living in the dark ages (probably?) but for me, it wasn't.

I'm in no way averse to the joys of having a really popular website, but I do still hold a strong amount of pride in the presentation of a story, regardless of whether it is on a piece of paper or a monitor.

So I do share the pain of a sub when I see headlines like this. Where has the skill gone?

Yet as if the web people at the Mail were aware of my growing sadness, they provided me with something to laugh at...

Lovely. Thank you.