I’ve said it for a long time, just didn’t quite make my point

Published by Ronny on November 26th, 2009 in Community. 5 Comments Tagged with , , , , , ,

I just finished reading an article on Drawar.com about how Smashing Magazine killed the community. I have been thinking about what you’re about to read for some time now but it never occurred to me that Smashing Magazine was one of the reasons why everything changed.

Let’s start in the beginning (because there’s a lot of things to cover here).
I’ve been reading Smashing Magazine for more than 2 years now. I started reading in their very early days as ‘Smashing Magazine’ (Before, it was a smaller online magazine with a different name).

They actually caught my eye with very very interesting articles that focussed on one topic. Every article covered ways to do things and things you shouldn’t do, in a very specific aspect of (web) design.  That content was of great value since it was on-topic and very high-end.
However Smashing Magazine’s content  not only caught my eye… Lots of people started reading it on a regular basis and subscribing to the RSS feeds. That’s when they really started making money, and therefor stopped actually writing ‘real’ articles and started going down the ‘lists‘ road. At that point, it only took me about 2 weeks to stop caring about Smashing Magazine (besides when they linked me). I still check the site every now and then, but honestly: If an article starts with a number I don’t even read the rest of the title. It’s all they’ve been doing ever since…

The worst part: Lots of other site have been doing it too, just because Smashing Magazine prove the concept works. I myself have only published 1 single post like that in the 2 years I’ve been blogging. And hell: I’m proud of it!
And the more I actually talk to other people about this issue, the more I realize the very people we write for think the same way. They don’t want a list of whatever. They want your secrets. They want to know why you did something the way you did it. They want to know why you prefer ketchup instead of mayonaise. They want a personal opinion. If they want a list, they’ll just Google whatever it is they need. Google lists everything by default anyway.

Community
I’ve been a FlashFocus team member for a few years now. I’ve come to learn the invaluable importance of a living and talking community. The community, the members, they are actually FlashFocus. Not the design of the site, not the features. It’s the people. It are the minds that are conflicting, the minds that are making us work. It’s those very people we put time and effort in a site for, so they can go on and have fun, share experiences and projects, ask questions, write tutorials, etc. And man, believe me: Every time we -the FlashFocus team- come up with a project, our team is so full of motivation because we are about to give the community something new to play with.

That’s all we’re working for: The people.
The same goes for the web: The Web-community, the Flash-community, the CSS-community, any niche you can think off… People are doing stuff, creating cool experiments, sharing thoughts. Those different people in a niche, sharing their ideas, experiences, opinions, etc… Those people are what we actually refer to as ‘The community’.
Back in the days when Smashing Magazine wasn’t that popular, I remember reading lots of blogs – some of them even contradicting each other –  because there was so much interesting stuff to read.
However since ‘lists’ became the holy grail, these blogs either died a silent death or became ‘copycats’. So I stopped reading… Those blogs lost their personality. They weren’t what I was looking for…

Lists
But what’s so bad about those lists you say? Yea, okay, they’re an interesting resource. But that’s it. They’re a resource. A reference. But I only use reference lists when I need them. Not when I’m up for an interesting read. The bad thing about those lists: They’re just a list. Not an experience, not a tutorial, not a story about your latest project, not a personal opinion about the latest FWA site.

I love to read personal blogs of friends. A lot of my friends are still students, and therefore only have about the same amount of experience as I have. So I’m not really getting any/a lot smarter regarding the topic they blog about (which is mostly the same as I write about). But they have a fucking personal opinion. That’s what I care about. Sometimes that opinion is completely different from my own, which results in a discussion and makes you think. And that is what connects people. Thats what connects the community.

Hmz… But why?
So why would they actually do that? They’re a great site with great writers, right? Yes they are! In the end it’s all about the money… It’s business. End of discussion. Just check the sidebar, the content-top, end of content… Ads everywhere. Not too disturbing but it tends to flirt with the levels of acceptance…

(This is a major problem these days. Everyone tries to puts ads EVERYWHERE. Look at Youtube: Putting ads INSIDE the video’s. I’m sure the visitors/users percentage is going down. But even then: they are still making more money than before, so why bother? They don’t care (enough?) about their community to actually not put ads in videos… As long as they’re monetizing as much as they can, they’ll just leave it like that.
I myself tried putting up ads too, and yes: I made some money off it. But it just doesn’t feel right. Using my readers as a way of earning money makes me kind of feel like I’m trading my soul to the devil)

So in the end, for Smashing Magazine: It’s about making money. And money is only a good reason to get a job. Not to have a personal opinion… So basically… Smashing Magazine is a great resource… But it’s nowhere near an inspiring blog anymore.

And having said all this: This is my personal opinion. Speak your mind! I’d love to hear your thoughts on any aspect of this topic.

By the way: The actual article I was referring to in the very beginning of this post: Link


Posts that somehow relate to this one:

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5 others felt like sharing their feelings about this. Feel free to do so as well.

Scrivs @ 15:30 - November 26th, 2009

Ronny, if everyone wrote with the passion that you just did the world would be a better place. Well maybe not the world, but at least our community would be in a better position than it is now. I’m happy that I could write an article that gets links, retweets and some exposure for my new site, but what really makes me proud is that it can invoke others to write and discuss what is on their minds about the situation.

I can’t remember the person that wrote the last list I read, but I can tell you that if someone mentions Ronny over at noCreativity I will be able to tell them what I remember reading at the site. That is what people need to understand, that in this world you can do a lot of copycat things and receive some traffic/money from it, but you can receive so much more when you start to do your own thing.

I know it can be hard to see when you are just starting off because these things take time, but continue to push out the great stuff and eventually everything starts to fall into place.

You are right though that when money starts to enter the mix things begin to change. That is how it has always worked in the publishing world, both online and offline. It can be a tough balance trying to make a living (or get extremely rich) and stay true to the community that helped you get there. I can only hope that if I’m fortunate enough to be in that position that I make the right choices.

Anyways, enjoyed the article and am subscribing. Look forward to going through your archives to see what else you got.

Ronny @ 17:48 - November 26th, 2009

Hi Scrivs,
Thanks for your kind words :) Cool you liked the post.
You’re right: In business it’s always about money. No matter what industry. TV, web, magazines, whatever, wherever… Although it’s kind of normal, it’s kind of sad too…

A lot of people/blogs/etc only value money, while there’s a way bigger price-tag on the readers-base/community-base. Fact is: You can’t buy a cool community. You have to build it, and that takes time. And in the end: that is worth so much more than any ad-agency is willing to pay to advertise.

And let’s face it: In the end it’s way more fulfilling if people start to link back to you if you do your own thing, because of the stuff _you_ have actually done/written. Not because of some list with links to other people(s work)…

It’s a very important topic and I really hope more people will realize it :)

Mark @ 0:53 - November 28th, 2009

Great post and point of view. I removed my banner between my posts on my blog-index page after reading this article. I don’t earn money with my blog anyway.

Ontopic; The community which you described, shares a lot for free (code/knowledge). I think this drives the community to create more and better technology. And maybe this is one of the reasons technology is growing this fast. It is sad to see big websites are overdoing themselves with banners. In terms of the flash communities, look at flashkit.com, there is no community anymore, there are only banners :)

About the lists, I dislike them too. Sometimes it is inspiring to see what is possible and hot, but ‘150 great designs of the month’ makes me also feel depressed. That is the reason why I just follow feeds of sites/blog i really like. Most of them are just from people who are sharing knowledge. I am getting inspired by people who just give some handles to create things yourself or encourage you to experiment and explore.

Thanks for your post Ronny!

Ronny @ 1:00 - November 28th, 2009

Hey Mark,
You’re completely right! Posts listing all kinds of stuff at once not only makes the people linked in that post feel less unique, the list itself really works demotivating by times.

Btw: cool you removed that banner between the posts. It’s that kind of advertisement that crosses the line. I’m one of those people that look at the content and only expect content to show up. Not ads. (Call me crazy, but most of the time I take a look at the ads too :-P It’s like checken the newspaper ;-) )
Anyway: Cool you removed it! You’re a better person now ;)

Kevin Airgid @ 21:01 - December 2nd, 2009

I agree with you. But sadly you are very right. One my blogs where I “list” things I get much higher traffic. In fact if you google “open source flash cms” you will see a post where I list Flash cms’s come up near the top. I wrote this post years ago. It’s crazy but lists work… but I agree they really don’t add much value.

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