This week I noticed an opportunity to perform a little experiment on the traffic generated by relevant links in the comments of Paul Krugman’s Friday column in the New York Times.
The article in question was “The Joy of Sachs,” a critique of the record quarterly profits posted last week by Goldman Sachs, even while the continuing, endless economic decline surrounds them on all sides. Goldman Sachs is a Wall Street giant whose successful senior executives regularly pass through the revolving door into the US Treasury Department. Yep, the foxes are running the hen house.
Or as Krugman puts it:
Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.
I’ve been watching Goldman Sachs closely lately. I want to know how these guys are gaming the system to come out on top no matter what market they operate in. So moments after the article was posted at 10:00 MT on Thursday night (12:00 AM ET or Friday morning in New York) I posted this comment inviting other readers to look at two other relevant pieces I recently shared on twitter providing some background on Goldman Sachs.
For more in depth analysis of Goldman Sachs’ slimy business practices I recommend:
1. Matt Taibbi’s “Vampire Squid” take on Goldman Sachs in the latest Rolling Stone: http://bit.ly/hwCbZ
2. CBC’s 30 minute interview with Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston on Goldman Sachs & Gov’t. Here’s the MP3: http://bit.ly/ZzLFm
It was the first comment posted on the op-ed. Four days and 279 NYT “recommends” later my comment was the 13th most recommended comment and on the first page. Admittedly, both the Taibbi and Johnston pieces are excellent, but I am still surprised by the results of the web traffic experiment.
I used the bit.ly URL shortener for each link. With 40 clicks on the Taibbi piece and 52 clicks on the David Cay Johnston interview to start with, I was impressed to see a huge spike in traffic.
With gems like this delicious line – “the world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money” – my link to Matt Taibbi’s Goldman Sachs piece received 1324 clicks on Friday and 271 and 74 clicks on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
My direct link to CBC’s The Current Podcast episode with David Cay Johnston, a hidden gem from Canada’s public broadcaster received tons of traffic too, even after I described it as a “30 minute interview.” After 768 clicks on Friday the podcast received 199 and 205 on Saturday and Sunday.
Four days later my quick comment with two relevant backgrounder pieces have generated over 3,000 clicks between to the two shortened URLs.
There’s a lesson here. Curating, saving and sharing relevant, valuable links in the comments of very popular websites can generate impressive traffic. Traffic that leads away from the New York Times’ website. This is a big change.
It’s like I encouraged readers to put down the newspaper to read a magazine and listen to the radio. But the Times‘ does benefit from my traffic draining, eyeball diverting links. Creating a community that encourages users to link to background information maintains their reputation as the place to get information; the “paper” of record, even if there are no dead trees involved.
In the end, I’m just happy to do what I can to expose Goldman’s business practices and help the Times readers call “bullshit” on the Wall Street orthodoxy that deserves at least part of the blame for the near-total economic meltdown.
