Think content websites need 2 look at delivering only the content that’s been explicitly requested by the user & nothing else

He was, like most of us, unhappy with all the clutter that you find on a typical website these days. There are ads, links to other posts, links to other websites, and a whole bunch of things other than the content that the user requested. The question is, if all the users hate this so much, why are the websites doing this? Don’t they know that they’re alienating their own users/fans?

The answer is simple: most of the users don’t care about this issue as much as they think they do.

I’ll explain.

I learnt this lesson the hard way in the early days of @meetumeetu‘s website wogma. Having views similar to Harshad, I kept pressing for a clean website with minimal advertising. And as meetu asked for advice from experienced folks, the advice she kept getting was that the ads needed to be more prominent. And when we (meetu and I both) pointed out that this would alienate the loyal readers, we got this surprising advice:

If putting more prominent ads really alienates readers, then, as soon as you enable these ads on the website, your traffic should see dip. So, turn on the ads, see if there is a dip, and if there is one, then you can turn off the ads.

This seemed like a reasonable, scientific mechanism of testing the issue one way or the other, and we turned on ads.

And by now, you’ll have guessed what happened. There was no difference in the traffic.

The basic truth is this:

If you have good quality content, then the readers are willing to put up with all the clutter on the website. That is the price they pay for the free content.

But, Harshad points out:

even apart from ads, there tends to be so much content that the user hasn’t requested for

That’s simply because the web publisher wants you to stay on the site for longer. Hence you’ll see links to related posts, and other more interesting sections of the website. The game is to try to increase your page views per visit, since in most cases page view are directly proportional to ad revenue.

But what about this objection:

a clean site with revenues coming from other sources like events, paid content, etc. sounds doable

Yes, and no. I’ll respond to each separately:

• Paid Content: In some ways, this is worse than ads and other clutter. It dilutes the brand and the content, and it irritates the readers even more than clutter. Increasing the ads and clutter rarely results in irate emails from users, but often content by guest bloggers does (and I am not even talking about paid content here).
• Events: Is possible in cases of “local” sites, but not possible where the readership is global and the per-city density of readers is not high enough.
• Etc: In general, trying to do any of the other things will distract from the main goal of most publishers – that of creating great content. This is not a tradeoff that everybody is willing to make.

So clutter is here to stay.

Are mobile sites a solution for this? This discussion started off with this tweet by Harshad:

That people r increasingly pointing to m.__ version of articles is IMHO a vote for clean interfaces & against the current web clutter

Make no mistake – as people start using the m.xxx sites more and more, publishers will find a way put ads and clutter there to. It just hasn’t become a big problem yet.

Here is a final quote to close out this article:

If you’re consuming something, and you are not paying for it, then you are the product…

In the world of (free) websites, the advertisers are the customers, you (the readers) are the product being sold, and the actual content is the marketing.

Image by World Economic Forum via Flickr

It is so common to hear people going on and on and on about how somebody famous and/or powerful is a complete idiot for doing something. They don’t understand how someone can be so totally bone-headed.

If you find yourself ever thinking like this (and I think this happens to all of us once in a while), stop and consider this question:

If that guy is such an idiot, and you can clearly see his faults, how come you are poor and unknown and that person is rich and famous?

In other words, the people who are in charge did not get there by being idiots, so if they are doing something that seems idiotic to you, which is more likely: that they are being idiots, or that you don’t have all the data, you are not seeing all the angles that they can see, and hence you are making mistaken assumptions based on an incomplete understanding of the situation?

Take, for example, the case of Kapil Sibal asking Google, Facebook, and co. to actively screen and filter all content before it is uploaded on their sites. Yes, on the face of it, it does seem rather an idiotic thing to say. However, my dear reader, I am willing to bet that Kapil Sibal is much smarter than you and me combined. He is a lawyer, he was the Solicitor-General of India, he had cleared the IAS exam (which is ridiculously difficult), and he has beaten Kyuki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi in an election. So the best you and I can say is that we don’t really understand why Kapil Sibal is making such statements. There could be any number of reasons that you’ll never know. Maybe this is a move designed to win over rural voters. Maybe this is just a public stunt to soften up Google, Facebook for a backroom deal later on at terms very favorable to the Congress party. Maybe this is a way to make sure that Google, Facebook are very co-operative and pliable when police (or other government bodies) approach them with requests for private data. Maybe he is the unlucky one who got picked by Sonia to make ridiculous statements to divert media attention away from the FDI issue. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Specifically, if you don’t understand Kapil Sibal’s motivations, you can’t really call him stupid.

Update 1: Do I agree with Kapil Sibal? Of course not. Pre-screen is neither possible, nor desirable. But I’m willing to bet that Kapil Sibal already knew both those things. My point is, saying we should oppose this is not the same as saying Kapil Sibal is an idiot

Update 2: Some people are interpreting my argument as “If you are not rich or famous, you shouldn’t air your opinion.” I’m definitely not saying that. All I am saying is that if your opinion is predicated on the fact that someone rich/famous is an idiot, then you really haven’t understood the situation, and should probably spend some more time thinking about the situation.  Feel free to express your opinion, and disagree. Feel free to even call that person an idiot. But if you actually think that person is an idiot, you are deluded.

Update 3: This article is not really about Kapil Sibal. The issue is broader. There are lots of people who keep saying/thinking that CEOs/VPs of large companies are idiots, or top actors/actresses are idiots, and talentless. SibalGate was a lucky coincidence which gave me a very current example to hang my argument on, but my argument is more general.

For example, consider all those who think Rakhi Sawant is a talentless idiot. Really?! Her job is to be in the news, be controversial, and keep getting paid to appear on TV and in movies. And she is doing her job far better than most of us are doing our own jobs. How then is she a talentless idiot? She is very smart, and does have lots of talent (in PR and marketing) – just not the talent you were looking for (acting). (By the way, I stole this argument from Scott Adams.)

What I’m talking about can more generally be stated as: “If everyone else is such an idiot, how come you’re not rich?”. This is a also known as the “Fallacy of Chesterton’s Fence.”.

This argument was long ago presented by G.K. Chesterton as follows:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

So next time you think the world is being run by idiots, stop and think a little more…

The article is long, and parts are rather boring, but some parts, especially on the second page, are quite insightful.

I’ll summarize with very broad, simplistic strokes:

• Yes, teenagers do take more dangerous risks than most other age groups
• They do understand the dangers involved (so you telling them “Don’t you know what could happen?” is not particularly useful)
• The main difference between teenagers and others is that they value the rewards (gained from taking the risks) much more than adults
• Teenagers take more risks in the company of their friends/peers. In other words, they value “social rewards” and “peer recognition” quite a lot – much more so than adults
• In general, this is evolution’s way of encouraging teenagers to learn new things, explore new opportunities, to boldly go where they haven’t gone before. This prepares them for leaving their parents’ home and going out into the world on their own
• They prefer the company of young people. Parents, teenagers don’t what you as friends, they want their friends as friends. (As explained previously, they are wired to get excited about new and unknown things, and parents are neither new, nor unknown, nor exciting.) Evolutionarily speaking, this is the teenagers investing in their future rather than their past or present
• To help, parents should “engage and guide their teens with a light but steady hand, staying connected but allowing independence.” While the teenagers should obviously benefit from your experience (and they often do – but a little later than you would like), their primary instinct is to learn from their own mistakes. Let them.

I am not the parent of a teenager, so I have no idea what I’m talking about. But I’m good at summarizing long articles into pithy blog posts.

You should probably read the full article.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate unsolicited SMS messages as much as you do. But what TRAI has done is throw out the baby with the bathwater.

If I book a ticket on http://BookMyShow.com, I used to get an SMS confirmation. I could use that SMS at the theatre to pick up my ticket. Now? Gone. If a doctor answers an important patient question on http://bharathealth.com, the patient would get an SMS with the doctor’s answer (so that they get the answer immediately, and not have to wait until they log in to the site next time). This is a service that the patients love, and they start complaining as soon as the SMS service stops working. Now? It’s illegal. The fact that the receiver of the SMS actually wants it does not matter. SMS from http://Flipkart.com telling me where my book has reached – Gone. SMS updates that tell me whether my waitlisted Indian Railways ticket’s status has gotten confirmed – Gone.

Here are the sordid details as I understand them:

Automated SMS can be divided up into two categories: promotional/bulk SMS, and transactional SMS. Bulk SMS is where you’re sending the same SMS to a large number of recipients (e.g. a daily stock tip would be in this category). Transactional SMS is when you’re sending different sms updates/alerts/messages to different customers (e.g. an sms update from your bank immediately after a high value transaction on your credit card).

According to the new regulations, here is my understanding of the effects:

• Users can sign up for a full DND (in which you don’t get any bulk SMS), or a partial DND, where you can opt in to receive bulk sms in certain categories. There are 7 such categories: 1: Banking/Insurance/Finance, 2: Real Estate, 3: Education, 4: Health, 5: Consumer Goods, Automobiles, 6: Communications/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT, 7: Tourism & Leisure
• Any user signin up for partial DND is pretty much asking the world of spammers (in that category) to start spamming him/her. Imagine – the partial DND list will be a public available list of people who have indicated an interest in a particular category and cannot complian if you spam them. A marketer’s (aka spammer’s) dream. As we say in Hindi, this is pretty much aa bail mujhe maar.
• For DND users, transactional SMS can be sent only by: Banks, Financial Institutions, Insurance Companies, Credit Card Companies, Railways or Airline companies, and registered Educational Institutions. That’s it. No one else can send any SMS to a user signed up for DND.
• Everybody else will essentially be treated as a telemarketer and be fined heavily in case of DND violations.

So, imagine you provide stock tips via SMS to users you have opted in to your service (what the heck, they’re even paying you for it). Under the new regulations:

• No, you are not a Financial Institution just because you’re providing finance information. So you can’t send transactional
• Under the new regulations, you cannot send your SMS to any user on the DND.
• Your only hope is to convince that user to sign up for a partial-DND and opt in to receive messages for category #1: banking/insurance/finance. I would assume that most users who’ve signed up for DND will be wary of opening themselves up to telemarketing by going the partial DND route.

Follow a discussion of this question on Quora for more.

Also see Sagar Bedmutha’s post on pluggd.in on this topic.

“The first thing is thinking that you can throw things out there and ask people to help,” when it comes to open-source software development, he says. “That’s not how it works. You make it public, and then you assume that you’ll have to do all the work, and ask people to come up with suggestions of what you should do, not what they should do. Maybe they’ll start helping eventually, but you should start off with the assumption that you’re going to be the one maintaining it and ready to do all the work.”

I have some experience with this, because 3-1/2 years ago, I made the same mistake. I started PuneTech with the naive belief that if I start a wiki with the purpose of creating a knowledgebase about all interesting technology in Pune, people would contribute to it and it would become a great crowdsourced resource. In reality, what happened is that I got lots of encouragement and thanks, but few actual contributions. I ended up doing most of the work myself. After a few months, Amit Paranjape joined the effort. But, by and large, the fact remained that most of the content had to come from me.

It is only now, after going at it for 3-1/2 years that people have started contributing more substantially. Vivek Shrinivasan and Meher Ranjan are actively updating the PuneTech YouTube Channel. Mayank Jain is creating the PICT PuneTech Group.

Moral of the story – when you start some new initiative in the hope that it will become a community activity, then be prepared to do all the work yourself for the first few years, and only then will it become a community activity.

1. Communication usually fails, except by accident.
   • If communication can fail, it will.
   • If communication cannot fail, it still most usually fails.
   • If communication seems to succeed in the intended way, there’s a misunderstanding.
   • If you are content with your message, communication certainly fails.
2. If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage.
3. There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message.
4. The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds.
   • The more we communicate, the faster misunderstandings propagate.
5. In mass communication, the important thing is not how things are but how they seem to be.
6. The importance of a news item is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
7. The more important the situation is, the more probably you forget an essential thing that you remembered a moment ago.

And there are three corollaries by Korpela:

1. If nobody barks at you, your message did not get through
2. Search for information fails, except by accident
3. Give the student a chance to realize he misunderstood it all

These are all taken from this blog post.

At this time, I don’t have any thing else to add to these laws. But I’m sure that in the years to come, I am going to quote Wiio’s laws #1 and #2, and Korpela’s corollary #1 repeatedly to people. (Just like I love to quote the Three Chinese Curses:

• Third Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times
• Second Chinese curse: May you come to the attention of important people
• First (and most dangerous) Chinese curse: May you get what you wish for

And this concludes my first ever parenthetical remark which has a bullet list embedded in it (And also concludes this blog post))

I bought most of these games while we were staying in the US, and kept adding to the collection on every US trip. Unfortunately, my US trips have stopped, and my collection is now no longer fresh. That is why I was particularly happy to see this website which now makes these games available in India. Very cool. I haven’t ordered from them yet, so cannot comment upon their customer service etc., but hopefully soon.

Those who’re wondering what’s the big deal about these games is, here are the salient features:

• These are board games, to be played with real people, face to face, not computer games
• These are games that are not as stupid, and mindless as monopoly, but also not as brain-bending as chess
• These games are designed to be played by families or groups of friends – lots of interaction, lots of fun, and get over in a couple of hours.
• The games have beautiful components

For a more detailed explanation, see the wikipedia page

But, most of it can very easily be prevented. All you need to do is to have a simple 15 minute chat with your children, once every six months. This chat does not involve talking about sex, does not involve talking about genitals, and is not an uncomfortable chat, and is not scary for children.

Here is a video of what this chat is like:

If you can’t see the video above, go to see it on YouTube

That is Dr. Bhooshan Shukla, a Child Psychiatrist going through one such session.

That’s it. That’s all you need to do.

For more detail on the Hows and the Whys and FAQs, see Dr. Shukla’s blog post on this subject. By the way, you should subscribe to his blog too.

Again, this is important, this is easy. Please do it.

And please spread the word.

This is not a problem that affects only western countries, or only kids in slums, or only kids from broken families. It affects everyone. That’s why you need to do this.

If you don’t have kids, I’m sure you know others who have kids. Please tell them about this.

If you would like such a session to be conducted in your society/school, but are not confident enough to do it on your own, you can contact me, or Dr. Shukla, or meetu (email), and we can figure something out.

Update: from Dr. Shukla on 11 August 2011:

Please continue to spread the word. Thanks.

All these results have been obtained by typing the first word or words in Google search and noting down what Google suggested as the first suggestion.

Tried some cities. Pune university. Bombay high court. Delhi metro. Chennai rain. Trivandrum airport. So, apparently, people in Pune are studious, in Bombay they are litigative, and in Trivandrum, they’re just trying to get out.

Politicians were more interesting:

• “Sonia Gandhi biography”. Really? That’s what people find most interesting about her? I was vaguely dissatisfied, so I looked at the remain suggestions, and was further appalled: “Sonia Gandhi hot”, “Sonia Gandhi photos”. Yikes! The internet sure has some weirdos. And the next was “Sonia Gandhi address.” I hope CBI is taking note.
• Rahul Gandhi girlfrield. Yep! Even after so many years, people are primarily concerned about that. No wonder he fared so badly in Bihar.
• Atal Bihari Vajpayee poems. Poor guy. After all he’d done, he’s going to be remembered as the PM who used to quote poems in parliament.
• Suresh Kalmadi Jokes. Not surprised!
• Sharad Pawar international school. Also Sharad Pawar college of pharmacy. Followed by Sharad Pawar cancer.
• Raj Thackeray ringtones. Yup, really, that’s the second suggestion. Scary!
• Shashi Tharoor weds Sunanda Puskhar.

I decided to move on to media:

• Arnab Goswami is a moron. Ok I cheated a little. The first result is “Arnab Goswami twitter.” But I swear the 4th result is “Arnab Goswami is a moron.”
• Rajdeep Sardesai salary. (Actually the first three results were “blog”, “twitter”, and “email”, but it’s interesting that so many people are interested in his salary.)
• Udayan Mukherjee wife. Poor guy. How prominent does a guy have to be before people start taking an interest in him and not his wife?
• Barkha Dutt Husband. After all the #barkhagate and #radiatapes affairs, this is the top search on Google?!

I was sure Bollywood would generate some interesting ones. So here they are:

• Deepika Padukone in bikini.
• Gul Panag hot videos. All her intelligent conversations on twitter haven’t helped.
• Kajol baby boy. Ouch!
• For most actors (Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor the first three results were “twitter”, or “biography”, or “blog”.)
• Rakhi Sawant is a man. Obviously this wasn’t the first suggestion, but really, there are people searching for this phrase?!
• Raju Hirani next. Wow. That, If a majority of the people on the internet are wondering what is your next project, that is a major achievement

You have any interesting ones to add to this list?

(Random FYI: “Navin Kabra” gets “old songs” as a suggested completion.)

There's a brilliant article by Devdutt Pattanaik on Hinduism and children, and is a must read for anybody who's interested in religion and are likely to be discussing this with kids. I think a lot of people end up treating kids as idiots when talking about religion in general, and Hinduism in particular, and consequently I think it is not surprising that kids go away with a very poor impression.

Devdutt gives a very sane and wise take on how best to do this. You should read the whole article, but here are some excerpts to get you interested:

What are some of the things a parent can do to get their child curious about their religion and culture without actually forcing them into learn about it?

By making the rituals fun. Rituals are about doing things. Rituals are choreographed to connect with us symbolically. Making rangoli can be fun. Cooking prasad can be fun. Doing puja – bathing the image, dressing it up, feeding it, singing songs to it – can be fun. The child will notice that the fun is associated with a deep reverence. Then he will question. Often this the point where parents turn rituals into "holy cows" and lose the opportunity to help their children gain an understanding of their cultural world.

My own moment of understanding of this point came when I read in my history books that Lokmanya Tilak pushed the whole 10-day, community Ganesh celebrations concept in Maharashtra as a way for getting people together and strengthening community ties. At that point I suddenly realized the social value of religion, and hence I've always been very supportive of the less stupid rituals and festivals, inspite of the fact that I don't really believe in God.

My other pet peeve about popular Indian religious writing is covered by the next question:

When it comes to Hindu mythology, there are either over-simplified books (geared towards kids) and there are the scholarly tomes. Neither is a good fit for a curious young person who needs something in between they can read independently. What kind of books would you recommend for them ?

My books! I became a writer because I saw this gap. Often the answers are not what the parents expect. The problem is that authors are burdened by wanting to make Hinduism look nice. The measuring scale is that of other religions. As a result writing becomes apologetic and defensive. People are trying but often I find writers have a poor understanding of the subject and so are unable to appreciate the complexities and so end up with awkward prose.

Try explaining the idea of Krishna surrounded by hundreds of milkmaids doing Raas Lila to a child. Are those girls, Krishna's friends? So is it ok for a boy to have many girlfriends? Are those girls his wives? So is it polygamy? Rather than answer such blunt uncomfortable questions, some writers escape into metaphysics – using words like Paramatma and Jivatma which, unless you are a believer, sounds like gobbledygook.

This really makes me want to go and buy Devdutt's books. I've already read his "Myth = Mithya" which I think is a great book. I'm now going to go and check outwhat else he's written.

On a related note, many years ago, meetu and I were browsing in Crossword, and decided to buy the entire set of Amar Chitra Katha comics they had. At that time, we did not have children, so this was sort of an impulse buy. Years later, now that I have children, I'm really glad we did that, because I read Amar Chitra Katha stories to my children at bedtime. And we have lots of fun discussions. From stories of ancient India (Ramayana/Mahabharata), to Shivaji and the Marathas and the Mughals, to the Indian freedom struggle, they are a great source of brilliant stories that kids absolutely love.

So you can imagine how glad I was when I saw this advice from Devdutt:

Do you have any recommendations for daily reading that may help a young person to navigate with greater confidence through their life – specially when the world outside is very dissimilar to the world inside their homes ?

Step 1: Read the Amar Chitra Katha. Step 2: Discuss the stories and don't let the comic be the end. Discussion is the key. Stories are to be told, not read. Step 3: don't reach a conclusion, don't justify, don't apologize, don't defend … just try and understand why the story was told by our ancestors.

Read the whole article.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous