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What I Can't Stand About Business Insider Tweets
As some old-time Slopers know, I've been online for a very long time. I was plugged into CompuServe back in 1981 via a 300 baud modem, and I've been participating in - and creating - online communities ever since.
I confess in my middle age-dom that I am feeling increasingly out-of-touch with the online world. Although I have a Twitter account with over 7,000 followers, it's apparent to me that I'm not really clear on how to build up a large audience in this medium, since the most completely random people have drastically more followers through some kind of magic that, I'm guessing, has something to do with how many people they're following themselves.
To look at the Twitter stream of most participants is an exercise in the banal.
But none of that is typically relevant to my life, since I dwell almost exclusively in the land of technically-oriented financial media. My Twitter hero is the same as my blogging hero - ZeroHedge - whose tweets are at various times droll, witty, newsbreaking, clever, educational, or important. During those rare instances that the market is actually allowed to tumble for more than a few hours, the tweets emanating from ZH border on Pulitzer Prize-worthy.
In stark contrast to this is another account I follow, that of Business Insider (specifically, ClusterStock, although I think most of BI's properties pretty much have identical tweets). For a long time now, I've been wondering what I find so irksome about BI's tweets. I never found them as clever or witty as ZH's. Indeed, I found them vaguely nettlesome, and this morning I took a look at just a small sampling to try to tease out just why that is.
I think in fleshing out this taxonomy, I've figured out the basis: simply stated, the tweets seem far more crafted to click-bait than actual information (or, God forbid, entertainment). Unlike ZH's, BI's tweets rarely can offer meaningful morsels in their message. Instead, they beg - yell, actually - to be clicked so that you can read the story beneath (which, incidentally, will be a page that will simply offer a quick summation as to the real story, which requires yet another click).
I therefore present to you the five categories of this BI Tweet Taxonomy and a tiny sample of each classification:
Like, Oh My God
These are tweets written in the style of an effusive fifteen-year old. If BI declared that Ben Bernanke's testimony to Congress was totally gnarly, it would not faze me.
The Count
This is the simplest form of click-bait. It's a well-known fact that those browsing the web are far more interested in an article with a number in it than one without. "12 Shocking Facts about Bea Arthur" will get traffic than dwarfs that of an identical article titled "Modern Maude". I notice that the second example below is a two-fer, containing both a number (12) and a Valley Girl adjective (like, awesome, if you like didn't see it, ya know).
Oh, the Humanity!
Drama, drama, drama. Business Insider seems to treat the most mundane stories as The Most Important Thing Since Jesus on a daily basis. I mean, look at these words - SURGES! HORRIBLE! COLLAPSE! CATASTROPHE! I can only imagine what their tweets would have read during the 9/11 attacks, since the overuse of superlatives has a dulling effect on one's audience.
Here Comes the Bride
Perhaps this one can be cured by a purchase of a thesaurus, but BI seems to have little else to precede a forthcoming announcement than the words "Here" and "Comes". I was even able to save a bit of time this morning since there were two Here Comes in a row.
Best. Headline. Ever.
And, last, an amplified form of the "drama" category, we have the land of the extraordinary. Those instances, events, and people which have no equal. I ask again: is it really possible to have all these extreme events and offerings in the course or just the two-day window of tweets I surveyed?
Maybe I'd have more followers if I tore a page out of the BI playbook, but I think I'd rather try to keep following ZH's lead and just try to write well, succinctly, and - if possible - with a bit of novelty.
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Fuck Business Insider.
How many times do you have to click one of their sensationalized headlines to find no meat on the bone in the article to stop clicking.
ZH blows Business Insider away. Check the Telegraph as well for good biz news
TwitterTwatting...what makes this POS site so intriguing? NOTHING!
It "appeals" to the Attention Deficit Disorder crowd. "Tweeting" even sounds asinine.
@TheStalwart sounds like MillionDollarBonus_ - that's all I need to know
Henry Blodgett should be drawn and quartered, he tries so hard to suck up to Wall Street hoping they will take him back, the liberal hack.
And that Weisenthal, now I have to listen to Tom Keene on Bloomberg in the morning, who sounds like he was up all night sucking cock, giving Weinensthal props.
Bloomberg is in as much trouble as CNBC, they cant keep anybody on the early morning show for more than 3 months, the ratings must suck there too.
I wish the Google crowd would wake up one day and look at Bloomberg and their jalopy of a system and take them out of the game, how much do you pay a month for a Bloomberg terminal?, talk about sitting ducks.
Bloomberg started deteriorating rapidly about 3 years ago, They were at least passable as a financial news reporting entity prior, if nowhere near good or stellar. I used to watch Bloomberg in my office with the sound muted then, which wasn't even possibly on the true Clown Network of cnBSc.
The lone worthwile asset of Bloomberg News now is Jonathan Weil, who is the only one remarking on core issues and who doesn't seem to be a proxy mouthpiece of The Fed or Parasites of Banking/Wall Street. Bloomberg doesn't deserve him.
It's the Huffpo of financial sites. There is no depth in any of their articles. I check them out, but I don't stay, there is nothing to keep me there.
I dont a single of his Cramer, Maria, Kernan, cnbc fucking pump stories.
in fact, bi blocked me from posting their site.
fucking cowards
Joe Wiesenthal is a weasal statist.
I will not read the site because of Joe and his click bait.
I kind of like BI (and it's right-wing ripoff site, TheBlaze), because I automatically know that anyone that cites it as a source is a complete tard.
"The mostest worstest thing ever! SRSLY! Must read tweet!"
Business Insider is appealing to an ever juvenile crowd lost in the delusional greed mongering of the "new" economy where central planning and central banking collude with parasitic TBTF banks in robbing pension funds and retirees.
It is a badge of honor for them to make a buck gaming the system and keeping the roulette wheels spinning.
MBA schools trained students to cheat and scam employees (workers) in every way possible; and now they are teaching their students how to steal anything the middle class has left.
Don't be too surprised that they sound like vapid teenagers.
BI is just another "National Enquirer" that pornographizes money-related data into tons of single-pictured pages to trap mouse-clicks for their on-line ad income.
In recent days, they have been hammering Mitt Romney several times a day.
Thank you! I can now explain the nausea I feel when I read or watch that guy.
The Most Important Take-Home Message from this post: tim knight has snapped up over 7000 followers
Funny thing is, I think you're right! Well, off to the store...gotta snap up some coffee for in the morning...!
I could never fathom why anyone would waste their time on such drivel. Note, I'm not saying don't waste your time on drivel. But, seriously, finance drivel? How about sports, porn, drinking, fishing, or any number of activities that are actually meant to be fun?
If I want tabloid journalism, I want to read about a Kardashian falling into a lava pit, not The Collected Quotes of Stevie Cohen. Besides, Bess has already created Gawker for the finance world (if that's your sort of thing).
"Business Insider" is such an oxymoronic name for a news source, unless one seeks to attract a base of muppets.
The choice of name should, in and of itself, dissuade one from paying any attention to it, as real insiders don't publicize anything and real inside information is shared within only small circles (e.g., Raj's hired peeps).
One does also have to laugh at the headline diction as a gross diminisher of brand equity...probably the result of some muppet running the thing and not having the cognitive capability to see the light.
Ha!
BI is a liberal rag that is loosing money hand over fist. Ask around VC circles.
It is almost to the point of being used as an example of what NOT TO DO.
There will soon come a day when their investors will cut the lifeline.
Their business model blows, as does their writing and editorial control.
I am willing to place a bet that BI will disappear soon after Obama is sent to grass in November.
Business Insider, the Carnival Barking Tabloid of Business, that's worse than the National Inquirer.
Two, side by side stories from Business Shouter [in between an unrelated ginormous photo of a Cheeseburger and another of an Ass Wiping Robot developed at Kickstarter] could be "This Hamptons Waterfront Mansion Just Sold for 11 Million & Came With Its Own Maserati!" and "The Chart That Proves That Krugman Is 100% Correct About Everything & Why Obama is A Genius, All In One!!!!!" by Joe 'Obama Bundler' Weisenthal.
And then, there are the mandatory 'buzzwords' that must be included in each of Business Sharter's article headlines:
Boom!
Smoking!
Explodes!
Plunges!
Massive!
Inferno!
Collapses!!!!
Surges!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flatlines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Moonshot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skyrockets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Henry is literally shooting himself in his bank account by allowing that idiot Joe W to keep making a bigger rag out of BI than it is. How his dribble is allowed to be posted there is a mystery. Sure, one goes to BI for the entertainmant value of watching the galactically clueless try to create strories about what's going on, but c'mon, how bad are they really in need of writers there.
Joe W is Blodget in drag. Instead of fight club, it's proffreading club. Two copies enter, one copy leaves! IN ALL CAPS!
Bro,
They are making HUGE money by not proofreading, not writing original content, click whoring with top 10 lists of boobies, ALL CAPS HEADLINES, and staffing it with low quality interns foaming to blow Henry and get some action in the VC and media world. I think they even have Siri from the Iphone standing in for Joe W writing articles, typos and all. Only twits tweet BI.
Just turn off Twitter. The world won't disappear.
Meanwhile R.I.P. Jon: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18864409
Twitter? What's that?
Tweet? What's that?
I know, I am missing all of the good ZH stuff! Somehow I suspect I'll live another day despite that. ;-)
Since we're ranting, I'd just like to say that one of the most annoying expressions I heard during the mid-2000's market runnup was "snapping up" shares. I heard that investors "snapped up" shares on a daily basis, and such usage of the word "snap" has become nails on a chalkboard whlie a fork scrapes across a plate at the same time.
At least the market tanked after that and nobody has snapped-up shares in years.
I never understood how "clicks" generated income. Companies really pay all that money just in the hope of putting an ad on your screen? And people actually make purchases from embeded ads?
I've been using that adblock app on Firefox, I never see them.
And yeah, BI sucks.
@Wynn, Consider that by using adblock you are inADvertantly denying income to your favorite websites.
In this case ZH.
Tuff call
People shouldn't get income from services I disapprove of unless I don't have to see it.
"I never understood how "clicks" generated income."
It's called CPM. They get paid per 1000 impressions of ads on a site. More page views = more ad impressions = more $.
It is all about how you can be a complete attention-whore, nowadays. That is why I value ZH, because at least here you get some real information instead of vacant 'analysis' on financial news.
I also appreciate the sarcasm and wit on their twitter comments throughout the day, I recommend following if only to get a chuckle out of the latest bank crisis.
I'm getting tired of TBI's Liberal biased articles myself talk about UNFAIR and UNBALANCED but I suspect since Henry Blodget is a died in the wool liberal that was kicked out of finance one could expect that kind of lack of journalistic integrity.
I stopped reading BI a long time ago for that very reason...every headline is a superlative. Drives me apesh*t. I'd rather just read ZH and get it straight.
It's like the news handles that try to keep you from changing the station during a commercial. Now I just get annoyed and get the story from my phone, then change the channel in spite. (Ok, that's apocryphal... I don't remember the last time I actually watched MSM news, but you can imagine what that'd be like, right?)