Comment trolls are often used as an example of why blog comments are a waste of time, but a recent series by the Climate Desk showed how they can quickly be turned into human beings. Read more at paidContent »
As more sites focus on longform content, Fast Company disclosed some statistics on how its longer pieces have been doing — but the data shows that the real secret isn’t length but ongoing engagement with readers. Read more at paidContent »
Millions of people now consume content on mobile devices but the analytics tools used to measure websites has failed to account for them. Now, a system has come along that measures these mobile users — and shakes up some of the traditional rankings. Read more at paidContent »
Android shopping traffic over the holiday lagged iOS even though there are more Android smartphones. We look at why Android still produces far less engagement than iOS and what might be contributing to the gap. Read more »
Media companies and publishers of all kinds spend a lot of time measuring their online traffic patterns using analytics that track where readers come from — but Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic argues that they are overlooking a huge contributing factor that he calls “Dark Social” traffic. Read more »
As newspapers try and re-engineer their businesses to adapt to the disruption caused by the web and social media, they will have to confront a crucial question: How can they measure the effectiveness of the journalism they are producing — or is pleasing advertisers enough? Read more »
App users are a flaky group, easily discarding apps in favor of the hot new thing. But new data suggests they are developing more loyal toward apps, abandoning them less frequently and visiting their favorite apps more often, according to app analytics firm Localytics. Read more »
Engagio, a social inbox that organizes people’s online conversations, is take a big step toward becoming a social network of its own. The Toronto-based start-up is rolling out a handful of new features including the ability to follow the conversations of other users. Read more »
Chartbeat announced a $9.5-million round of funding and a series of new features aimed at giving websites and publishers better insight into how users are engaging with their content, something that has become increasingly important as Facebook becomes a major player in online advertising. Read more »
An investment fund of J.P. Morgan is paying $100 million for a 7 percent stake of online and mobile engagement tool maker Conduit, which is now valued at $1.3 billion. Conduit says it’s the first $1 billion Israeli Internet company. Read more »
Critics of reader comments often argue that they are worthless because they are filled with trolls, and not that many people read them. But despite these flaws, building community through comments and other social features is more important than it has ever been for online media. Read more »
Appsfire, an app discovery platform, is launching a free service called App Booster that allows developers to create a simple two-way inbox inside their apps to help establish a communication channel between developers and users. It’s designed to be an easy way to foster in-app engagement. Read more »
A study suggests that apps downloaded through incentives are largely abandoned or uninstalled, providing little long-term benefit to the app developers who use these app distribution campaigns. According to a Harris online survey, only 3 percent of apps downloaded through incentivized install campaigns are used frequently. Read more »
A new commenting system at the New York Times has drawn fire from readers, but the motivation for the move is sound. If media companies want to behave like communities (which they should), they need to encourage their readers to “level up” and become more engaged. Read more »
Square, the mobile payment acceptance tool, is getting a lot more useful for merchants with version 2.2 for iOS and Android. It brings loyalty rewards for Square Card Case users, hardware integration with cash drawers and receipt printers and more back-end tools. Read more »
Mobile app analytics firm Localytics found that 20 percent of all mobile apps have social integration through Facebook or Twitter. While Facebook is the most popular tool for social sharing, the average Twitter user drives three times more traffic. Read more »
The Guardian says it’s now going to experiment with allowing readers to help decide what news to cover. The paper announced Monday that it’s going to make its “newslist” public, following the idea that if readers are part of the process, they’ll be more engaged. Read more »
Crowdtwist, a New York startup that recently graduated from TechStars’ New York class has been on a roll lining up customers like JCPenney, Live Nation and Sony Music. Now it’s announcing it has raised $6 million to expand its gamified social loyalty program. Read more »
Badgeville is introducing Social Fabric, a technology allows a website to quickly add a host of real-time social features on their site that charts user behavior, updates users on their on-site activities and allows people to follow any piece of content or fellow users. Read more »
Gamification is growing up. First it got its own conference, a new certification program and now consolidation. BigDoor, a gamified loyalty platform used in hundreds of websites, is announcing it’s buying up web check-in rewards provider OneTrueFan. Read more »
Seven years after launching anarchic image board site 4chan, Christopher Poole unveiled Canvas in January, a re-imagined message board that takes the learnings of 4chan and applies them to a more mainstream community. Now, Canvas, which has been in private beta, is open to the public. Read more »
When you pick up your iPad, where do you poke first? I tend to hit Reeder first, and read quite a few articles before moving on to my local newspaper app. It looks like I’m not alone, according to new engagement statistics released Tuesday. Read more »
For mobile developers looking to engage their users, push notifications have become a key tool in drawing users back into apps. Notification provider Urban Airship told me it has hit 5 billion push notifications since it delivered its first message a little over two years ago. Read more »
Gamification, that buzz word panned as hype by some, has increasingly won over companies, investors and even research firms like Gartner, which now predicts half of all companies will use gamification by 2015. So what’s next? How about gamification certification? Read more »
We just wrote about the growth of social network MyYearbook, who has been on a tear as it emphasizes mobile, engagement and games. Well, the company got the attention of Latino social network Quepasa, which is buying MyYearbook for $100 million. Read more »
MyYearbook, a social networking site, has seen its growth soar, in part by emphasizing engagement and games with an increasing focus on mobile. The company has found a way to survive amidst larger competitors by focusing on its core offering of helping people meet others. Read more »
