That Talking Time fundraiser was meant to keep the site up and running steadily, but because the universe likes punching my soul in the liver it’s had the exact opposite effect, somehow. For whatever bizarre reason, Reddit took an interest in that Star Trek thing I wrote up as my backer obligation for Vega and the damn thing made the site’s front page. This resulted in the second-highest day of traffic the site has ever seen, and currently impressions for today are at about 75% of yesterday’s and climbing.
As you’ve seen, this has had the effect of knocking the site offline for nearly a day, since the whole reason for the fundraiser was that my current host sucks and we need to move to a better one. There’s something very recursive about this whole situation… but it does underscore why the move is so essential.
The funny thing is that businesses crave Reddit traffic. I’d love for something at USgamer to have gotten the kind of exposure Telebunny has seen over the past day — it would have been super valuable for a site as young as that to get so many new eyes. Even IGN, vast as it is, watches its traffic reports with breathless hope that Reddit will send a few hundred thousand extra ad impressions its way. But that’s the thing, right? Reddit-chasing is about ad impressions. This blog doesn’t serve ads, so an influx of traffic from a big aggregator is actually a terrible thing for a site like this — it kills usability for the small group that frequents it, all so that a bunch of people can skim an article and jump back to Reddit and post about how stupid the person behind the item of interest is.
I guess what I’m saying is, please, for the love of God, don’t submit this site to aggregators, guys. I honestly do appreciate the sentiment (“here’s a cool thing you should read!”), but until we get onto better servers — and it looks like Indiegogo’s disbursement won’t come through for another week or so — it becomes a case of killing with kindness.
Alternatively: write boring articles. If you try your hardest, Jeremy, I reckon you can come up with a stinker.
This sounds an awful lot like a more modern version of The Producers. In other words, a win-win situation.
Maybe the US Gamer piece about Final Fantasy will end up there or something. I thought that was a good one and always great to see someone standing up for FFX2.
Also I am absolutely loving all the vita love over at USgamer. You guys are kicking much tail and hitting on all of the vita titles I want to know about before dropping cash on them. Keep up the great work.
I hope the idea of a Star Trek cable show gets around, but I wasn’t in such a hurry to promote it as to link Redit to it. I’ve never even been there before this crash.
Still, I like the idea that when others run with my suggestions they can strike a nerve with the public. During the fundraiser I kept thinking that if I wasn’t pinching pennies I would have paid $200 because there’s a topic I would love for Jeremy to research and publish. Maybe next year!
If it makes you feel better Jeremy, most of the guys who saw the link to your post agreed with you. No one challenged your intelligence or said “WHY ISN’T THIS FUNNY!?!” like that comic* from a few years back. They liked it.
That said, a skim suggests that quite a few of them just read the headline and commented on it, and no one identified you. Oh, and people have been submitting stuff from your site for some time, but, aside from the Star Trek thing (that specific link and to several subreddits/categories), none of them got more than a handful of votes.
Personally? My take on your blog post is that either you need to see Deep Space 9 or need to rewatch it. It involves a Captain with more moral difficulties than the Kirk/Picard set, a small command crew working at the edge of the Federation, has a number of political quandries, etc. Not that as much sex as you’d expect from an HBO show though.
And yes: aside from a couple episodes, it takes some time to sink in.
I don’t know how often you’re told this, but thank you for all the time you dedicate to your site :). It’s amazing.
*Who wrote that comic again? I forgot what it was about…a history of an old game I want to say…
People submit my stuff to Reddit regularly? Now I’m really worried.
The comic, was it one of Phil Armstrong’s? Anyone who doesn’t like his work shouldn’t be allowed to read comics.
Not that regularly, though it has happened somewhat consistently (See: http://www.reddit.com/domain/telebunny.net/ ; notice that, as I said, only Star Trek managed more than 20 votes. Yes, there’s a SaGa subreddit.).
And I believe it was Phil Armstrong on the history of a game. Didn’t you somehow fix Gamespite so that it wouldn’t register on reddit or something in the first place to keep this kind of thing from happening in the first place?
I saw the article posted on the /r/startrek section of reddit, and had to laugh when I saw it was ultimately linking to telebunny.net. It was a good write up, even I disagreed with its premise. I know you loathe the spotlight Jeremy, but these kinds of things are actually good for you in the long run. And even if only a sliver of that heavy traffic actually rubs off into long-term readership, that’s still an earnest expansion of your website. Keep up the good work!
I don’t mind the spotlight, I just don’t want my site to die horribly with no return (Reddit traffic never carries over to become a new, larger, permanent audience).
How about Slashdot?
I’m not saying I’d do that!
Does that still exist!?
I can guarantee that Reddit will never be interested in the topic I picked!
Slashdot is doing the same as ever.