Alert the New York Times: Zebo falling like a stone
Today's New York Times covers Zebo.com, "The World's Largest Repository of What People Own." Zebo is not a competitor, and I wish them well. But somebody needs to hold the NYT's coverage to a higher standard.
Here is Zebo's Alexa traffic chart, as of today.
Was the article titled "Zebo Falls like a Stone" or "Social Shopping Site Fails to Keep Users"? No, it was a glowing and hopeful profile—a site that's going somewhere, not the red-stomached belly-flop it really is.
The Times cites the founder that "four million people" have joined since January. Check the blogosphere. Google Blog Search knows of only 47 bloggers linking to the site, compared with 4,785 for LibraryThing, a site with 2% of Zebo's stated users. Is it possible people who join LibraryThing are 5,000 times more likely to blog about it? Did they discover the perfect user repellent?
I love the New York Times. I get it nearly every day, and read it voraciously. The LibraryThing office is literally strewn with old copies. I can't imagine a world without it. The Circuits sections is, even now, one of most important ways I learn about new trends in Technology. But this article—and one about swap site Zunafish earlier—have me stumped. How do they come about? Can there be any explanation other than good PR and lazy reporters? Besides Alexa and Google Blog Search, there's Technorati, Feedster, Media Metrix, Del.icio.us (14 people to LibraryThing's 4,843!) and on and on. A check on any of those should would have thrown the story in a very different light.
It should be hard to spin on the web. If you product isn't working online, it should be very hard to hide it. Even from the New York Times.
PS: LibraryThing's never been covered by the Times. I rely on my still substantial trust in their journalistic ethics not to hold this blog post against me.
Here is Zebo's Alexa traffic chart, as of today.
Was the article titled "Zebo Falls like a Stone" or "Social Shopping Site Fails to Keep Users"? No, it was a glowing and hopeful profile—a site that's going somewhere, not the red-stomached belly-flop it really is.
The Times cites the founder that "four million people" have joined since January. Check the blogosphere. Google Blog Search knows of only 47 bloggers linking to the site, compared with 4,785 for LibraryThing, a site with 2% of Zebo's stated users. Is it possible people who join LibraryThing are 5,000 times more likely to blog about it? Did they discover the perfect user repellent?
I love the New York Times. I get it nearly every day, and read it voraciously. The LibraryThing office is literally strewn with old copies. I can't imagine a world without it. The Circuits sections is, even now, one of most important ways I learn about new trends in Technology. But this article—and one about swap site Zunafish earlier—have me stumped. How do they come about? Can there be any explanation other than good PR and lazy reporters? Besides Alexa and Google Blog Search, there's Technorati, Feedster, Media Metrix, Del.icio.us (14 people to LibraryThing's 4,843!) and on and on. A check on any of those should would have thrown the story in a very different light.
It should be hard to spin on the web. If you product isn't working online, it should be very hard to hide it. Even from the New York Times.
PS: LibraryThing's never been covered by the Times. I rely on my still substantial trust in their journalistic ethics not to hold this blog post against me.
posted by Tim at 11:05 AM
6 Comments:
"I rely on my still substantial trust in their journalistic ethics not to hold this blog post against me."
Are we talking about the same New York Times? Journalistic Ethics? Maybe in a previous century ... but for the past several decades they've been little else than a spin machine for the Left.
Expecting ethics from the NYT is like expecting a scorpion not to sting ... it's simply not in their nature!
Are we talking about the same New York Times? Journalistic Ethics? Maybe in a previous century ... but for the past several decades they've been little else than a mouthpiece for the corporate Right.
I'm sorry Tim, but I have to echo both Anonymouses. Even for the most thoroughly analyzed broadsheet in the world, the Times generates an embarrassing number of scandals, mistakes and egregious bias.
It may be a good paper (I don't read it often), but it has many a problem with its newsroom.
Well, since that article seems to have come out after the transition from "beta" to "live" (as they call it), maybe they are itching to write about LibraryThing, but are waiting until the little "beta" text disappears from from the title bar and they get a fancy looking press release.
Probably not, though.
I work for ZEBO and there's actually about 4.9 million users globally, with US teens and twenty-somethings being the highest. We got them all mostly over the last year during private beta. We didn't have ONE blog post or story until last week. That was the plan, and it worked! Our Alexa numbers dropped when our site slowed down during development/server upgrades. Some of you know how that is. Call me if you're still an unbeliever.
Tyler, PR Guy, ZEBO
408-489-6909
After having a look, I'd have to put Zebo into the category "sites that parents need to know that their kids might be using". That alone is worth an article in my mind. (I can just hear the creeps out there: "Let's see which young person should I try to exploit today? Hm... Maybe someone who has listed all of the family's valuables.")
LibraryThing is not nearly as much a site that I'd be worried that my child was mixed up in.
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