What you see here is a page of TheNextWeb magazine. And let me start by stating the following: I love that site. The content is relevant, relaxing and not too serious all the time. So I do like the philosophy of the site. But would you mind taking a look at that screenshot? The red square shows the actual content. Everything else can only be described as

1. Ads. Really. Advertisements. Hey… It’s okay. They gotta make money somehow, right?
2. Their own social profiles: They mention every single one of them at least 3 times on that page. I think they might have forgotten they put it there twice before…
3. Social sharing links: They want you to push their content as far into the web as possible, using any social service they can get their hands on.
4. Egotripping data: After you shared this article with every living soul on the planet, they tell you what you have done. A thousand diggs! A million retweets! And a billion RSS readers!!! This actually makes me wonder: Does anyone actually care?

Because that overall look of the page annoyed me so much, I made an effort and measured the whole thing up. This is what I came up with.

I had a browser window size that enabled me to view about 1024 pixels width by 768 pixels height. Due to the layout and ads etc, I was only able to actually see 500 px by 463 px of content. At this point you might still not be aware of the real problem.

So let’s talk percentages: The actual content (which is what I got there for in the first place) only represents 30,1% of the page in this window. That’s about 70% of content/data/stuff which I don’t even want to see. So in fact, 70% of this page is what could be considered as spam.

But what’s worse…

Asking people to Digg your stories. Just don’t do it. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it’s supposed to be used. Just write good shit. If you make your stuff worthy of being dugg, people will digg it… How could they possibly forget? You’ve got so much social sharing stuff in there, people might forget why they actually got there in the first place!

Conclusion
This isn’t a paper I’m writing or anything. There’s no conclusion. I just wanted to get this off my chest.
I hate ads but I do understand why people put them up. And I even sympathize great ways of advertising on blogs/websites. I do however not enjoy the way some sites start to look because they lost focus on content and visitors, and end up only worrying about making lots of money. It disgusts me.

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