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Comment by jcomis | Hacker News Reader

He does address this exact point in the article, did you not see that?

I did, but I think he greatly underexaggerates the importance of getting your name out there. If you deliberately hide yourself from a huge portion of your potential audience, those people will never know that you exist. I don't have a relationship with his site because I'll never have seen them in the first place.

And although it's just one data point, I've personally started visiting iMore because I came to recognize their content through Flipboard, found it interesting, and wanted more.

Maybe I'd glance past 100 TPM articles on Flipboard and never read them, in which case TPM isn't out the traffic. Or maybe I'd start skimming those articles because I've started to associate their icon with interesting content and convert into a regular view. The odds of that happening are admittedly low, but the odds of that happening if their content isn't available on my news consumption platform of choice is approximately zero.

But ultimately it's TPM's call. If they want to restrict it, then I completely defend their right to do so. I just don't think it's a good business idea.

TPM is in the top-1000 sites in the US. It seems they're doing okay without Flipboard and others.

    I just don't think it's a good business idea.

Presumably they've analyzed their traffic and made the better business idea based on the amount of inbound traffic that Flipboard et. al were sending their way.

[1] - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/talkingpointsmemo.com

This is the same argument against paying employees more than $epsilon: there is someone hungrier than you who will work for less.

It isn't really interesting to observe that people want free stuff. It is interesting to unite producers to get a better price for their effort, and to tackle the behemoths who can afford to dumb content below cost. It is interesting to try to convince consumers to stop wasting their lives, and to demand better content worth a higher price.

But the thing is, that means you aren't his audience. Sure, there are circumstances under which you'll read his output, but if you're not willing to play the game then you're no use to him.

What a publisher can sell profitably to advertisers now is a small, engaged audience - not massive numbers of people who couldn't care less and just pass through.

'underexaggerates'? I don't know what it means, but I like it. From what I've seen of TPM, they seem to be a very "preaching to the choir" sort of site. I don't think wider exposure will help, they are niche and need a niche strategy.

So, using it is marketing. Now they have their market, and exposure. So, that part of their marketing, using that marketing vehicle is over. So, even more it seems to make sense to ditch it and perhaps move on to something else. You dont have to keep doing the same thing the same way.

Also, to that end, it seems to have failed. They want people on their site, and Flipboard apparently isn't doing that. All it does is use the content to keep people on their site.

Taking the article at face value, I'd say ditch it and market in a different way.

You just said in the start of this thread that you use flipboard and only flipboard for your news. If that is true, he loses absolutely nothing by you not reading his content on flipboard.

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