Pondering Changes to ITotD

Great site and although I don’t get to it every day I snjoy the articles each time I read them. After reading the above it’s amazing you have the time to even write this survey up. It will be a shame to see it go but if it does I’de opt for option #5. In the meantime thanks for all your efforts and my wife and I shall be reading whenever we are passing by.

I’m a new reader (Ph.D. in oceanography) and really enjoy this. Ever thought about aspiring grad student type docents?

I’d suggest that you eliminate the weekends and holidays. Also, shorten up on the article length and supplement with referring URLs.

The appeal of your site is the surprise and novelty of the topics on a regular basis. Thick of it: consistent novelty, an anachronism, if there ever was one.

I enjoy your site and wish you well in whatever approach that you take.

Don

P.S. For me the type in this window is miniscule. Also, there is an HTML error in this section of the page. I’m using Firefox on a G5 running 10.3.7. (I’m waiting for Tiger.)

What about making this a paid subscription site. I’d be willing to pay $5/year — maybe even $10. If you kept 1/4 of your readership would that provide you with enough money to justify continuing? Would you retain 1/4 of your readership?

If you don’t want to make it a paid subscription site, then I like your option #2 best. Even though I wouldn’t see daily articles, it would be a pleasant “supprise” each time I get an E-mail saying that there is a new article to view.

I like option 1, and don’t mind the business-daily articles being a mix of old and new content as they are now, bringing the article-writing time down to what option 2 would require — there are some articles I’d just never reach following chains of coolest-related-articles that are nonetheless welcome when they’re featured for the day.

Five bucks is also a bargain for the e-mail subscription — you could probably ask for seven or eight and not see your paid e-mail subscriptions go down too much.

I just found you, and am very interested in keeping you in my Favorites. How about Interesting Thing(s) of the Week? With a nice long explanatory article as you have today. I’m involved in other online forums, etc., and one which was excellent has now gone out (Blue Ear Forum–an international discussion group). I think one of the reasons it has gone off after 5 years (and we did buy membership each year) is the fact that people just got tired and wanted to move on….it, also, was daily except Saturdays. I really believe that a once-a-week posting by you or your “interns”-whatever- would stay around a long time. Thanks for your time and energy you’ve been putting in; this world needs all the info. it can get from honest sources.

I am a daily reader of Itotd, it’s one of my favorite sites. I was estatic when it finally restarted, but I understand the stress it must add to your life. I’m also a writer. It’s one of those things you want to do, but do not want to find the time for. What if you wrote weekly, but during the other days posted a topic and allow others to write about it, also wiki-like. You could also ask for more guest authors; I considered writing an article for you, but I couldn’t settle on an idea. If you provided ideas, you might find experts on those subjects volunteering to write more articles for you. For now, I will try and help by telling everyone I know about your website. Thank you so much for your website; it’s everything interesting that’s fit to read.

Frankly I don’t know how you do it. I tried to maintain a weekly essay but tired after six months. Optiiom 1 makes good sense and inviting “specialist” submissions on themes you suggest. Sadly, the need to request annual subscriptions is probably a necessity. I suggest $4.99 a year. My guess is that it would yeild a fair amount of income; perhaps enough to make it work for you and your bride.

Hate to see any change, but then I’m 81 and who knows about this evening even?

Option #2 sounds about right. Of course, it’s not my time and money involved. Thanks for whatever you decide. It’s been fun having you in the house.

George

Thanks everyone for your comments so far; keep ’em coming! I’ve tried to respond individually to everyone who’s provided feedback.

I’m flattered by your kind words and glad to hear so many of you are enjoying the articles on a regular basis. This sort of feedback warms my heart.

Let me just say that I would be utterly thrilled to have more guest authors, as several people have suggested. Few people have expressed an interest in writing articles so far, but I’m very happy to consider all proposals.

The lukewarm response to the optional email and audio subscriptions I already offer leads me to suspect that a subscription-only version of ITotD would be a hard sell. Theoretically, I’m in favor of offering free content, but that only makes sense if it produces income in some other way (such as through ads). My #1 concern is that the site never become annoying (no pop-ups, animated banner ads, spam, etc.). So it’s a tricky problem.

However, the one thing you all can do to help, as a couple of people have mentioned already, is to spread the word about ITotD to your friends and families. More readers can only help!

I have been reading the articles every day for months now, and I am a more interesting person for it. I am ashamed to say that I have not made a donation or subscribed to the email version, but if the site were made subscription only, I would certainly subscribe. I’ve done my small part by telling probably 50 or 100 people about it, and the downside is that it would be harder to get new readers; I would have a hard time convincing someone to sign up if they had never seen the site before.

I would hate to see the site change, but you could certainly stop writing on weekends with little or no impact to readers like myself. In fact, this is the first time I think I’ve ever looked at the site on a weekend (I like to read the articles on company time – bad, bad me). I don’t think I’d visit as often if the articles were shorter as in option #3, it just wouldn’t be enough.

So, I will keep telling everyone I know to visit and read the articles, and I will subscribe to the email version (to my work email, of course, so I can still use company time). I hope that helps.

I love iToD, although I do not manage to read it every day. I have signed up for the free e-mail notification, but I feel like I should pay something for the service. Free content is great, but the daily notification is value added; I suggest requesting a minor fee for that, and slightly increasing the charge to have the articles mailed to the reader. I spent a year writing a daily essay for another list, back in 1995, and there were days I rose from bed at midnight, cursing, because I had not written the essay for the day that had to be mailed out at 6 AM, so I have loads of sympathy for you. I also got hooked into writing another weekly mailing that went on for four years until I just called a halt.

But, I’d suggest switching to a weekly format, possibly expanding the detail of the weekly essay. Or, it could be a combination: Monday through Thursday, short snippets of interesting things, with one longer essay on Fridays. Something like that would keep the daily interest flowing, yet satisfy people who want more in-depth info.

I think that option #1 is highly valid and acceptable. No one expects to see content 7 days a week, AFAICT. Personally, I think that option #2, irregular distribution, is problematic for all of the reasons that you cite, and likely to lose readership. As for option #3, a reduced format, I am both for and against it, and I think that here is another possibility for you. I’m with you 100 percent on the idea of having free content, but that does not mean that all content needs to be free… Try this idea on for size:

Your web page would contain a reduced format version of each article, as you described. This would also keeps it positioning on search engines, which is an important part of gaining new readership, and I’m pretty sure is how I came to you a couple of months ago. Besides, you need the content to draw AdSense revenue. The full article, containing your highly enjoyable prose, would only be available by email … and here’s my unique contribution. Subscribers would receive the email daily (5 x per week, that is) and non-subscribers would be allowed, say two or three emails per week. This would allow casual readers and especially newcomers to see what makes your site so great, (and not just by viewing the archives, although they should probably be kept online – it’s probably more work to abstract them,) but would have incentive to subscribe. Those who like to read you occasionally would be constantly nagged when they tried to enter their email address for a fourth article with the I'm sorry, but you've already received three ITotD articles this week. Why not subscribe and get each article in your mailbox, as well being able to receive as menu other articles as you like? message.

The wiki idea mentioned above is also interesting me….

Thanks for all that you’ve done so far, and I hope you can make a go of it to keep pumping this stuff out. I love it!

I’ve never understood how you can manage to write daily articles with so much detail and documentation. I try to read them every day, but don’t always succeed.

I’m sure that taking a break on weekends and holidays would be acceptable to all your readers. I love the current format with the personalized introduction for each article – so don’t change that. What you might consider doing is extending each article over several days, maybe even a week. You could write up all 3-5 short segments at one time to allow for its overall ‘unity’ of composition, and publish each instalment on a daily basis. This would reduce your workload considerably and still give your readers their daily ‘fix’. But please – no teasers! I hate someone telling me what they’re going to tell me after the station break. They do that on CNN all the time to make you watch the commercials!

This approach would also allow you to produce even longer articles where the subject matter is deserving of such treatment. Why stop at 5 instalments on a topic you’re really ‘into’? Readers could go to your website for any parts they have missed.

I certainly hope you come up with some solution that gives you some well-deserved time out. I’d hate to lose you! But I realize it’s only fair to give you some time for your husbandly duties. (Your wife must be a saint!) ;-))

Your comments at the top of the page had double display of characters and I couldn’t read all of them. Hopefully, from others’ comments I got enough of the gist of your topics.

I have only recently discovered your list and really think it is a treasure. I would hate to not have it to look forward to each day, or even just weekdays. I can also see where it would be a burn-out with all of the time you put into it.

I subscribe to another list (computer-related- I could provide the name off-line- don’t want to advertise someone else’s list on your space) that has a regular version, including minimal ads. It is published twice weekly, with occasional defined breaks. It also has a subscription-version, ad free, which costs $15 per year. When you break that down to a weekly or per issue cost, it’s a bargain. A model like that might be workable to both you and your readers.

how about: a. keeping the ITOTD going b. recycle old articles M-F (never hurts to reread and allow further retention) c. write new ITOTD for Sat & Sun.

that way you have only 2 artles each week to write, and we get to revisit all the old ones (sequentially). and over a year or two, you will have enough “oldies” to keep your recycle cycle to 1x/2 or 3 years.

also, then those who do purchase your subscriptions, and even give them out as alternates to christmas presents/cards – can keep doing so and still enjoy receiving the emails.

I read only occasionally, as I’ve a busy life too. ITOTW would suit me, or serialization of the longer articles would work for me, if you felt you had to keep ’em comign back daily.

I just love ITotD and I read it every single day for over 6 months now (I suppose I began reading shortly after your restart). Shorter interesting things would just not suit me, as I enjoy the detail you put into your articles. But maybe it would be a solution if not all were shortened, say you write a small interesting thing every day and one full article per week. But what appeals me the most is something like this: – you write one or two full articles each week – present an old article in the homepage every day you don’t write a new one, keeping some kind of “line of thought” within a week (related to your weekly article) or even just a random choice – ask for guest articles. Add an “idea” area where you would publish ideas/subjects/”things” you would like to cover and invite readers to write or just send you research material. If they don’t want or like writing they could still help you with your workload. Ask also for fresh ideas. If the ideas are approved/considered interesting by you, you would add them to the list.

I understand this is not maintainable and it would be a great loss, in my point of view. I’m more than willing to help you.

I love Interesting Thing of the Day. It’s great.

To be honest, I wouldn’t mind if you began implementing plans #1 or #2, but I would really dislike any of the others. I don’t want IToD to turn into a mini-article blog, there are plenty of those. I like the long articles. I was actually very surprised when I realized that you posted on weekends too, because most people don’t do that. Here are a few suggestions of mine: 1. Interesting Thing of the Week 2. Nominal subscription fee? 3. You could set aside one day to write several articles, then publish them over the course of the week. 4. Perhaps do more advertising? (I’ll put some links on my website and message board signatures for free if you’d like.) 5. The site looks a bit primitive, and though I don’t think it’s a big problem, I suspect some people may have not given it a chance because of that. Perhaps making it look cooler would help. 6. Some people with blogs have made an actual book out of their blog and sold it. An example is http://www.museumofhoaxes.com

Thanks for your great site!

One could quasi-compromise … I’ve done research (got the sheepskin to show for it — although they don’t use sheepskin anymore!), and I know how much time it takes. You have my sympathies. I also know how often one comes across snippets of information, interesting stories and facts, that simply don’t make their way into the main body of the text — perhaps because they cannot be verified, perhaps because they don’t quite fit the topic. You hate to toss ’em out, though …

Thus: consider a snippet-of-the-day (as it were) as you do your research, then one essay per week. The snippets shouldn’t take long to write, and you’re doing the research, anyway. For those of us who know about such things, it has the added benny of seeing your process. For you, it might just have the added benny of getting knowledgeable reader response before the final article is written and posted.

You can apply the same principle and recycle older material, too — there is always new or additional information out there. (Do you keep your notes? Might be material there already.) Main essay is already written — with luck, you won’t have to revise it at all. But the week is filled up with snippets.

By “week”, I mean work week: Monday through Friday. Minus weekends as a matter of course; minus holidays / vacations (which is a very good time to do the recycling of older material).

And, yes, PlantPerson has a good idea: book. Museum of Hoaxes did one. So did Africam. So did Salam Pax.

And as for snippets … at the risk of seeming terribly declasse even to know about such authors [grin], I note that Barbara Cartland once published a book of information she never got a chance to use in any of her romances.

Good luck.

Tanuki

I like this service; the things discussed are in fact interesting. But you’re competing with a lot of other stimulating but nonessential time-suckers (and I mean that in a good way).

Since subscribing a few months ago, I have consistently wished for more text in the emails and less in the articles. The one-line teasers in the articles are usually not informative, so only about one in five entices me to invest more time in clicking its link. The articles usually ramble around tangentially for a paragraph or two, so I usually skip to the second heading and see if you’ve got to the point by then, backing up if it seems warranted.

So even if you weren’t forced by time constraints to change the service, I’d argue that it would be improved by making the articles about half as long as they are now, and making the teasers more revealing. The frequency and regularity of the column is completely unimportant; that’s what subscriptions are for. Be about quality, not quantity.

I hope you find a balance that works for you!

I just recently discovered itotd, but I believe it’s wonderfull and interesting. I read a lot of very useful tips from the people putting in feedback before me and I believe there has to be a way you can keep up doing what you are doing without getting a burn out or something. What attracted me the most is a combination of you writing a few articles (say 2 a week) and others writing guest articles. Plus you can recycle 1 or 2 articles a week from the archive. This way you spend less precious time on writing and research without itotd becoming interesting thing of the month. I hope you will find a way to balance things in life and feel good about it. Good luck!

Banner ads can be annoying, but I’d rather read ITotD with ads than not read ITotD. Do you get enough hits to make that work?

I would vote for Option#4 as it seems to me it would require less work from you. Have really enjoyed the postings, but could live without the weekend/holiday ones. It would be acceptable for the “week” to refer to a five-day week. I have very much enjoyed ITotD since I discovered it! It’s fun to relate tidbits of information I’ve gleaned from ITotD to my friends. Thanks for launching such a cool site…Hope you keep it up!

Another little thought — in the e-mail edition, you might be able to get more ad hits (and make ITotD more addictive than it already is) if you included links to related articles on the website in the e-mail edition — that’s how I explored the site when I wasn’t a subscriber, and I’m sure I’d follow a trail of links off an e-mail into the site at least once in a while.