Wall Street Journal gadget guru Walt Mossberg surprised me this morning by devoting his hugely influential Personal Technology column not to a smartphone, a desktop app, or an online tax service, but to a news and commentary site called True/Slant. I figured that if Mossberg writes it up, it must have lots of value for his Personal Tech readers.
Well, no. Mossberg spent his entire column talking about True/Slant's business model, the pedigrees of its founder and writers, its non-traditional pay scheme for writers, its brazen courtship of advertisers (which I'm cool with), and what this all means for the field of journalism. He didn't talk about the site's actual content at all. He didn't point to a great story on True/Slant.
Having read True/Slant this morning, I can't point to one either. Nor can I find anything about personal technology. True/Slant reads like The Huffington Post without celebrity bloggers. The site's top story is a catty smackdown of Fox's latest reality show. Writer Matthew Greenberg gets props for restraining his rant to two and a half paragraphs, but here's a sample of his mixed-metaphor prose:
Anyone want to predict when the reality show train, having squandered the last of our good will while simultaneously siphoning off the last drops of crass at the bottom of the cultural cess pool, finally grinds to a halt?
The hype around True/Slant this morning comes entirely from journalists intrigued by True/Slant's pay-per-pageview scheme, plus its plan to let advertisers have blogs on the site. For those of us who don't care about these machinations and just want something to read, the site fails to ignite.
I took these notes while poking around this morning:
- True/Slant's launch marketing, including an opening letter from the editor, focuses on the site's business and editorial processes and ignores its product. No one talks up this or that awesome post.
- Editor Lewis Dvorkin opens his post, "Welcome to True/Slant," by recalling Vietnam, Watergate, and Row v. Wade. Tradition and nostalgia don't fly on the Internet.
- There are no big stories waiting today for Web surfers sent to True/Slant by Mossberg and others.
- There are no big names to lure readers and generate buzz. By contrast, the Huffington Post launched with Arthur Schlesinger, Julia-Louise Dreyfus, and John Cusak's notes on Hunter S. Thompson.
- True/Slant wallows in insidery newspaper-employee jargon, starting with the site's intractable name and continuing with column titles such as "The Copy Box" and "Undisclosed Name." The geek-jargony "Alpha" atop the site's logo doesn't help.
If True/Slant doesn't want to become another Cuil, it'll take more than a press blitz about the site's business model. True/Slant contributors need to land some news scoops and write some zinger opinions. If they do, they won't need any coverage from the rest of us.
Comments
Many online publications have great content, and no business model. Some of the ones that do have a business model have a horrible one, since they lose millions of dollars. So your criticism of all the discussion of a unique and possibly promising business model is somewhat ironic. I would argue that it's easy to find great writers - it's hard to find money. Do you have any doubt that a profitable, traffic-laden True/Slant could get Bill Maher or John Cusack to do a guest post? It's an alpha launch, day one. The story *is* the model of strategically mixing old journalism with new social technology. True/Slant is the 'industry unstandard.'
Hear hear, Drapeau
But I'm leaning toward Boutin on this one. As a journalist myself, I was highly intrigued by the WSJ article sent to me by a colleague this morning. I spent the day revisiting the site a number of times and was even attempted to post a comment, although was rescinded by the requirement to sign up. I like the integration, feels like Facebook hired a select few professional bloggers and wrapped them in Twitter. It's oozing potential. Unfortunately, I found myself surfing through the headline grabs, not the blog posts, which I understand are meant to be among the site's moneymakers. I agree the model *is* the story, but I have to refute your question regarding Cusack and Maher. Traffic-laden and profitable are not necessarily equitable (see YouTube). I think the advertiser blogs will bring in the most money, but for every dollar earned, the site way pay with shreds of journalistic dignity.
Good luck with your venture, Drapeau. True/Slant's ambition is highly admired.
dropaline
DJC
I was excited to check out the site and had high expectations after seeing it appear in Mossberg's column. I was completely underwhelmed when I went to the site twice yesterday. I will continue to visit and see if it grows on me.
I read Mossberg's column yesterday and really was looking forward to checking out this site. When I finally did get the chance to check it out I was significantly let down. The site doesn't have any new stories to check out when you log on. It just looks like a lot of fluff and not much actual content. If your going to get the media attention you have, you need to be ready for the visitors that will visit your site. True/Slant does not appear to have been ready.
There are a few competitors to True/Slant out there, one of them is Newsy.com which doesn't just aggregate the news, but analyzes HOW the media is covering a particular story. I know true/slant just launched the other day ... but in the internet, the day you launch you need to be totally ready. Hopefully they can step up their game a little.
I agree entirely. Despite strong contributors like Ken Layne, the site is enshrouded in the sad air of a J-school experiment or someone who thinks he's the first person to envision a news Web site...right down to the clunky big concept name (reminiscent of Newstrust or Truthdig) and the green eyeshade man profundities about perspective ("News is more than what happens!!!). And Matt Taibbi is sporadically entertaining, but the "extreme 'tude" in his picture inadvertently makes him look like DVD legend Zak Spears.
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