Yeah, but it's the only cheap way. Video costs like 10x more than text to produce. (NB: I'm an editor at The Atlantic and I love video and I love text.)
Ha! I know you, we've worked together. I was on the web team for Longshot Magazine in 2011.
How expensive can it be if you guys are getting content for free in exchange for "exposure" ;)
I'm also not talking about video. I'm talking about interactive storytelling that combines interactive elements with strong narrative elements that gives people the ability to explore, and that can grow over time.
It might cost more to produce, but it also isn't a one-shot thing. If you were to take what the Atlantic did on gun violence and you had built something a little more substantial around it, something that broke outside of the web template, and committed to adding to it over time, you could continue extracting value out of it for a long time.
When things like "explainers" are produced, they usually sort of fade away after a while because they're released in the same episodic format most journalism is, even though they don't really work the same way.
For instance, This American Life's "Giant Pool of Money" is as relevant now as it was when it was produced, but to find it you have to look in a date-based archive. That doesn't make any sense.
If you're getting content for free in exchange for "exposure," are we really talking about high-quality journalism? My experience has been that while they aren't always at cross-purposes, relying on that sort of thing to stay afloat doesn't lead in the direction of consistent, high-quality journalism.
The value of "exposure" is never as valuable as the offerer says. "It'll be good for your portfolio!" is a hoary joke in the creative and producer fields, which gets touched on here in "business founder vs. technical founder" threads, not to mention the entire animating principle of hackathons.
How expensive can it be if you guys are getting content for free in exchange for "exposure" ;)
I'm also not talking about video. I'm talking about interactive storytelling that combines interactive elements with strong narrative elements that gives people the ability to explore, and that can grow over time.
It might cost more to produce, but it also isn't a one-shot thing. If you were to take what the Atlantic did on gun violence and you had built something a little more substantial around it, something that broke outside of the web template, and committed to adding to it over time, you could continue extracting value out of it for a long time.
When things like "explainers" are produced, they usually sort of fade away after a while because they're released in the same episodic format most journalism is, even though they don't really work the same way.
For instance, This American Life's "Giant Pool of Money" is as relevant now as it was when it was produced, but to find it you have to look in a date-based archive. That doesn't make any sense.