[ryanmaynard]

It seems Outside magazine propelled itself from obscurity by driving traffic to its site with population contests through Facebook. People tend to vote familiarity, so the larger metro area of the two tends to win. The exceptions are the tourist towns that have regional pull. I'm impressed this method continues to work.

[paulcole]

Outside has been popular for decades. They published the articles that led to Krakauer's books Into Thin Air and Into the Wild.

[ryanmaynard]

My mistake and ignorance on the 'from relative obscurity' part, but the strategy works nonetheless. I'm not knocking the method. If it works, it works. It was just an observation.