Bill Randall Provides Free Professional Advice for TCJ.com

I still haven’t reconciled myself to Bill Randall’s departure from this blog…so I’m going to pretend he’s still here by stealing his comment from an earlier thread and making it into a post against his will.

Especially since I occasionally hope that someone form tcj.com reads this site, and I wanted to put this where they’d see it, just in case.

So here’s Bill:

My quips aside, here’s an online marketer’s perspective, since I do that in real life. And I am snowbound & procrastinating, unlike Vancouver.

(My first draft turned into an online business plan. Split-testing, Crazy Egg, conversions. Madness! If you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll have you selling acai berry in an hour.)

Short version: the design gaffes suck, mainly for framing the launch as TCJ/Fail. Yet they can be fixed… install the Disqus comments manager here, move the RSS feed to the top there. “Continuous muddling” becomes “continuous improvement,” as Toyota would have it.

The big problem?

The “interminable stream of content” favors clicks, while TCJ is (and should be) written for readers.

For clicks, sell ad space. Split articles up over multiple pages. Tell advertisers you get X unique visitors and X^2 pageviews. Put the ads in the hotspots for ads.

For readers, find out what they want, watch what they do. Give them free stuff (essays, TCJ-Date, Krypto-Revolution of the Age with tween trolling & RickRolling in the comments) and they give you time & attention, eventually as a reflex. Everyone reading this has sites you check 5 times a day, and TCJ’s main page is not one of them. HU might be.

Right now TCJ’s design favors clicks over readers. Johanna Draper has pointed out it needs just a few small fixes– the commenting thing is the main one, easily fixed with a plugin like Commentluv or Disqus. Read her post, though, for her accurate take on the mismatch in Gary Groth’s opening shot and the reality of the site’s execution.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned since Noah invited me to HU, since I left, and from hanging out, is the very real degree to which the internet is about conversation. Its whole damn architecture favors conversation. Whoever fosters that will thrive, whoever stomps it out or ignores it will fade. Noah’s very, very good at fostering it. TCJ was when people wrote letters. If it can translate the spirit of the old Blood & Thunder into curated blog comments, six months from now everyone will be reading it first thing in the morning for the spit & gristle.

And buying acai berry from their email list.

And here’s a question: what are some sites to model?

PS
I left out the best thing.

__________

Update: And while we’re on the subject: why the hell is Eric Reynolds writing this for the Comics Reporter rather than TCJ.com? (Link by Sean Collins.

Update 2: Just to be clear; there’s nothing against Eric. It’s a fascinating essay, and Tom’s to be congratulated for getting it and putting it up. But it just seems like gross negligence that tcj.com can’t even get important news features and scoops from Fantagraphics own publishers.

24 thoughts on “Bill Randall Provides Free Professional Advice for TCJ.com

  1. On the sites-to-model query: didn’t the welcome essay cite Senses of Cinema as inspiration for the new tcj.com.

    Senses of Cinema, incidentally, has a terrific essay up on the icononology of the comic panel in Godard’s: Made in USA

    (Man, I hope that link works; the last time I hand coded any html other than italics was before the millenium turned…)

  2. The link works.

    If Senses of Cinema was the inspiration, why didn’t TCJ just rip-off the website layout? Not that the Senses of Cinema page is some great masterpiece, but it’s much better than TCJ.com.

  3. I like CinemaScope too, another WordPress-based site. (& I have the Japanese DVD of Made in USA. If I try to watch it with the J-subtitles and listen to the French I get an awful headache.)

    Okay, Noah brought up the Atlantic. Bonus points for the person who figures out the biggest difference between TCJ’s site and the Atlantic’s. Hint: it has nothing to do with the site design.

  4. Jeez, Bill; way to remind us all that you’re a teacher.

    Based on your previous discussion, I’m saying the difference you’re talking about is that the Atlantic doesn’t have third-party ads on its front page.

  5. The Atlantic separates long-form content from shorter content (which was moved to a separate page, The Wire, several months ago).

    That, and The Atlantic site doesn’t make my eyes bleed…

  6. I’ll go with the ads things myself but the real shock from Bill’s earlier comment is that he’s both a film academic and an online marketer (and an expert on Japanese culture). Who is this guy anyway ?!

  7. The secret is out: Bill Randall is Batman.

    I’m trying to find good things to say about TCJ.com. Here’s one: at least it isn’t Comic Book Resources, where half the page is an ad for Halo: Legends.

  8. Hmm, but Comic Book Resources actually does a better job of keeping older articles on the “front page” and it seems far easier to navigate/search. That Halo ad must pay big bucks as well though I have to say I hate virtually everything connected with that franchise.

  9. Well, there goes my attempt at seeing the bright side. You’re right about the superior navigation at CBR.

    Having looked at the sites linked in this comment thread, I’d say dividing the content into separate columns (one for blog posts, one for short reviews, one for longer articles, etc.) is the way to go.

  10. Suat, aren’t you a doctor? I haven’t been an academic lately, though I am running for Congress.

    The Halo ad is likely a Cost-Per-Action ad, which often pay on email or zipcode submit, considerably more than what you’d get from a click on a Google Adsense ad. Commissions on purchases are way, way higher. I’d give numbers, but the online economy is hard to believe.

    Okay, good answers everyone. No homework tonight. The real answer, though, is in the lower right-hand corner, where the Atlantic collects email addresses. Right below it: “Check this box to receive occasional updates from our partners and sponsors” translates to “yes, I want you to make money by selling my information to people who will spam me hard.”

    If I were running TCJ, it would have popups every five seconds that try to get your email. Then I would spam you hard with Acai Berry offers, Water for Gasoline offers, and limited-edition gold-plated Kramers Ergot offers that come with a certificate of authenticity. Once the FTC got wise, I would already be in Yogyakarta sipping kopi tarik.

    In all seriousness, getting the email is huge. The customer list IS the business. When people give you permission to sell to them, you can print money. TCJ is collecting folk on Facebook & with Twitter, so it’s a start. I wish more artists did this with understanding of what they have.

    Now, you could say that my emphasis on selling is at odds with TCJ’s mission. They’ve always kept admirably separate from Fanta, not serving as a PR organ. Many of Fanta’s books have been thrashed in the maws of critics now reading these very words. But selling doesn’t bother the Atlantic. When a TCJ critic writes a book, or a new print TCJ comes out, I hope they tell me, and more than once, because I’m forgetful.

    2010 Congress

    PS
    Remind me to tell my Oxfam/Illy marketing lesson sometime.

  11. Even if they don’t want to sell you anything else, you’d think they’d collect emails to inform you when the new issue of the Journal comes out, maybe?

  12. I don’t see why they don’t require a login to read the long articles. A lot of the places I read do that, and I generally don’t mind. As part of it, some of them have ‘check this box to receive updates on Your Favorite Thing’. I’d check to be updated on manga posts, if they had that option. I wouldn’t even mind if that meant I got spammed by Fantagraphics about their new manga-related titles.

    I *like* finding out about stuff I want. (Like anyone, I hate getting spammed about stuff I hate.)

    I continue to be puzzled by the long list of names on the side of the site–who are these people and why should I care? The difference between essayists and bloggers means nothing to me. A lot of the time I look at the site and try to find something interesting, but my eyes glaze over and I just blah blah blah. I can rarely tell when it’s an article I want to read. I mostly just wander over to Journalista.

  13. “I continue to be puzzled by the long list of names on the side of the site–who are these people and why should I care?”

    Those are Very Important Comics Critics. If you don’t care it means you are not serious about comics criticism. This may severely impact your nerd credentials.

  14. Why is it a continual puzzle that a site lists its writers? A click or two could solve this haunting enigma. One of the reasons to have the names this way is to make it easier to find stuff by people who you like, rather than the endless scroll they have now.

  15. Oh noes I have failed the nerdiness test!

    I sad truth is that when I read the New York Times or the Atlantic or the Great Big Blogosphere, I only value a couple of voices as *voices*. There’s good reasons that most newspapers only have a handful of columnists whose work is name-oriented. To me, a journal is topic oriented. I’m not going to track an entire long column of names, especially if I don’t already know who they are. A few people, sure, but not a whole long list of them. That sidebar is very valuable space.

    A click or two does not solve this haunting enigma. It merely brings up the most recent writings of that person. I’m sorry to say that unless I already know and especially like the writings of a person, I rarely care what they have to say simply as a voice. Instead, as a new to them reader, I want to know what the person does, or what they write about most often, or why I should pay attention to what they say. For instance, if you click on Gary Groth, you get a long list of past articles, and unless you have a lot of patience to dig through many articles, you won’t find out that he’s the chief editor. I had no idea who he was until we joined here.

    I read plenty of comics criticism, and I blog here at HU, so, as these things go, I’m the sort of new reader that TCJ should be tempting. I don’t recognize most of the names on that list, but that just means I’m reading a different group of critics.

    I suppose that one of my main complaints in general about mainstream comics is that it is incredibly insular. If you don’t already know the names, it’s hard to find out the basics. Sure, I’ve formed some opinions of whose articles I like to read, and I have nothing against advertising the writers as a draw. But that could easily be done with tags. If there are some voices that should be drawn out for special attention as being great writers (essayists?) then why not have a profile page as the click, with some especially good writing highlighted. Bob Jones is famous for his series of articles on Superman’s Style Through the Ages or whatever.

  16. hear, hear – i agree with vom, especially on the idea of having a profile page instead of more post-valanche.

  17. “A click or two does not solve this haunting enigma. It merely brings up the most recent writings of that person. I’m sorry to say that unless I already know and especially like the writings of a person, I rarely care what they have to say simply as a voice.”

    This is a problem with WordPress, as it treats the author as a category tag more or less. I still click links on dozens of blogs for bios and get the post pile. I don’t like it, but I don’t think like a software engineer either (cf. Jaron Lanier’s latest book).

    A fix is creating a page of short author bios, with internal HTML “a name=” anchors linking to each author, then the name tag to posts at the end of the bio.

    “i agree with vom, especially on the idea of having a profile page instead of more post-valanche.”

    Perhaps HU can lead the way in the right sidebar! :P

  18. The point isn’t that people don’t know how to find information about authors. Of course they do. VM’s an academic librarian, and has used search software you can only dream of (or that I can only dream of, if you happen to be a librarian.)

    What the point is is that tcj.com can’t tell whether it wants to be a blog (where you have a limited number of authors with whom you have a personal relationship, and thus it makes sense to list them) or whether it wants to be an online magazine (in which case you get contributions from many contributors, and provide an author bio at the bottom of each post, or not, as you see fit.)

    Listing tons of writers on the side takes up space that you could use for better things (ads, pimping other articles, whatever.) The current set up is, as VM says, extremely confused.

  19. The point is Gera’s having fun tweaking.

    Steve Krug summed it up in a book title: “Don’t Make Me Think!”

    Designers are paid to think ahead of us. If we have to spend time sussing it out, they failed.

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