Seeking Input: Fundraising and the Challenge of Finding New Readers When Google Is Out to Disappear You | naked capitalism

Have you ever thought of offering some type of membership for a monthly fee that would give readers access to special offerings or events? Maybe in the vein of the meetups you used to hold pre-COVID, but something virtual and more appropriate for the times and manageable within your resources and time constraints?

I only mention this because, I love this site because I feel like I’ve found a community of like-minded thinkers, but its cadence feels more geared to those who are retired and can actively respond to and debate the site’s content as it posts throughout the day. Due to my work schedule, I can only read the site early in the mornings and late at night, so by that time the opportunity to participate in the commentariat discussions has already passed me by. So I end up a forever-lurker of the site, yearning for actual real-time engagement with the like-minded community, but never getting it.

I’m the type of person that would pay a monthly membership fee for access to virtual debates or book circles with the Naked Capitalism writers and community, but I understand that’s an added layer of labor that you may not want to tackle. I just offer my thoughts because I suspect there are a bunch of lurkers of the site like me, passively participating due to their life circumstances, who might pay for the chance to be part of a club of kindred intellectual spirits.

How could pop ups be worse than the trashy ads that proliferate on your site? I think a handful of broader topics, including book and other culture reviews is a good idea.

Wouldn’t hurt to have a donate button. If you have one already, I can’t find it!

A couple of things…

You have one of the few comment sections that is viable and unlike most other places in that the level of commentary is so much higher than elsewhere generally, along with lots of humor.

What we don’t have is the irritating scramble to be the first comment, it isn’t uncommon for half an hour to elapse before the first missive finally appears.

We have hundreds of topical really funny songs that pertain to frankly everything going on in not just an economic vein, but across all news, but what we don’t have is somebody to perform them, and word of mouth on clever, cutting songs would defeat Google at their own game, imagine a million new eyeballs watching a video and laughing their arse off, wondering what Naked Capitalism is all about, is it an economic voyeur site? I better check it out.

Nobody ever read Weird Al’s songs, but they sure caught on when performed on stage…

I’m not sure if it’s viable, given time constraints, but maybe partnerships/mutual benefit agreements with youtube channels (kinda like Michael Hudson does) in the sense of quick interviews or something of the sort could be great for publicity. I have noticed that media-critical channels (Brian Berlectic, Ben Norton, Duran, etc.) have grown a lot the past few years, and they have achieved some very great audiences. Maybe something could be arranged in the sense of mutual publicity? Youtube has kind of become a de facto public square after the collapse of social media into “enshittification” (thanks Doctorow).

Besides that, I think a weekly newsletter with brief (one-two paragraphs max?) with the articles published during the week could be very helpful. Sometimes I want to return to a piece, but then forget or delay it, which could be mitigated. Also, I think No Party has a point in talking about some way to focus on the community. The fact is that the diversity of perspectives is what makes this site above and beyond the best place to have conversations on complex topics. Maybe an easy thing to do is to have weekly open threads? I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, but perhaps more opportunities for free discussion could be good (Links do provide that, but their short life-cycle means that maybe conversations which could go on for longer end up getting cut short). That does add moderation work, which I’m not sure how viable it is, though.

In my view there is little sense in trying to become anything else, given that the site is quite great at the moment. Maybe just play your strengths more and try to reach out to alternative media, which is where the real growth is at, in my view.

This might be heretical, but I’d think that some very targeted advertising might be useful, at least to get buzz in some heretofore untouched spaces of the Internet.

Yesterday I noticed that Naked Capitalism disappeared from the “Frequently Visited” section of my iPhone Safari web browser, which is surprising since I visit the site at least once a day and the remaining items much less frequently. Could it be Apple doesn’t like the word “naked”?

As for sending my circle to NC, that’s been a failure despite my sincere efforts. These are largely PMC liberals, and they are perfectly happy soaking in the daily emissions of the NYT without risking any conflict to their comfortable self-reinforcing world views.

The only insight I can offer on attracting more views is that NC has an excellent track record for getting things right. But only existing readers know that. Might go against the grain, but calling out success in Twitter/X, pointing out the wins, might be attractive.

My suggestion would be to act like you’re on a book tour. You don’t have to create your own youtube/ticktock/instagram/podcast but you could be a guest on all of them. (Though it wouldn’t be a bad idea to medium shift your content.) You go to talk about the overarching themes of your work and what you do. I used to read you daily but with a newborn and now toddler I moved over to things I could listen to while doing other tasks. The bulk of my news comes from Breaking Points now. I do value your work as an aggregator and commentators but it’s a bit under the radar and people need a chance to know who you are. Unfortunately, for your privacy and emotional stability, people might need to know the names Yves Smith and Lambert Strether as part of the general popular independent media zeitgeist and thus seek out your work.

Attach to a Mastodon instance and start throwing links at it.

Regular posting of article links on X (formerly Twitter) would greatly expand public awareness of NC. Adding graphics and video links to the blog would also give the site more appeal.

On the principle that it is better to hang together than hang separately, perhaps it might be an idea to coordinate more with other sites that are like-minded travelers. During that last fundraiser for examle, the Moon of Alabama site was gracious enough to suggest to their readers to send some funds to NC if they could. I haven’t really really gone into this thought that much except perhaps such sites can have shortcuts to them sandwiched between ‘Recent Comments’ and Topics’ proved those sites do the same.

Wow, maybe if both your external-linked editorials, commentary wasn’t so 100% anti-US, pro-russian, pro-ccp, blah blah and any dissenting comments weren’t slapped down and those people berated all the time. You guys used to provide nice summaries, I could recommend to my colleagues – but the economic and health links aren’t worth wading thru the incessant anti-US blather (often deserved, but almost never equally applied criteria).

Revise your sidebar to refocus outbound links by major topic then resort your links so that the hottest button topics are on top and the links periodically reshuffled depending on who is most on top of the news. Maybe add another section at the bottom for ‘trusted’ reader site recs (this could gradually grow your reach).

I’ve been thinking about how the “antidote” might offer an angle. I wager our PMC family members would have a gander at Links if a photo of their favorite pet was gracing the page.

I check Ian Welsh and his weekly “news update” post is always chock full of links, with attribution naturally, to content from here, so much so that I usually skip it. Does this drive much traffic?

I probably wouldn’t be alone in my interest in a book review feature, especially with a focus on classics. Educating myself about, and through classic literature has been my healthiest escape from current affairs. The work of those who maintain and contribute to this site is precious; it is a little island of reason. I am also likely not alone in saying that I would be gratified to be of any help I could. I have a backlog of essays, and some book reviews of the type readers here might enjoy; if these can be of any use please reach out.

Find someone to read NC’s original articles and make the recordings available so that people can listen to them in the car, on a bus, or in a waiting room, etc. Make them available in all the podcast apps and platforms. I would subscribe.

I don’t think it’s very expensive to hire voice talent to do this but it’s possible NC already has fans in the comments who would like to volunteer to do it.

File this under “Department of Demented Ideas,” but perhaps a NC Hasbara Cadre?
This brings up the question of exactly what kind of “attention” the site wishes to attract.
Is the site ‘tolerated’ by the Powers, or is it an insurgent in the ongoing culture wars? The Prop or Not experience showed how a little bit of overreach on the part of the Powers tripped them up. Why? Because “they” went after too broad a swathe of ‘opposition’ to begin with. The sample size of the initially ‘targeted’ non-standard entities was so large that backlash was almost built in.
So, even given the present financial constraints, is the extant size of the site optimal for it’s survival?
On the commentariat, much as I personally enjoy commenting here, a part of me, way back in my mind, admits that I am a low value commenter. Humour, (for some definition of the word,) goes only so far. The focus of the site is really the transfer of useful information. As such, the comment by No Party above has merit in that there probably are more than one types of reader of the site. No Party’s comment that “…its cadence feels more geared to those who are retired and can actively respond to and debate…” suggests that a two tier site architecture could be beneficial. The present form, perhaps truncated, or made semi-regular, and a second, and eventually larger form of shorter “news snippets” with links to the longer form treatments embedded.
I have read that most ‘people’ read the headline and the first paragraph of an article and then move on to another story. This could be adapted to this site. A daily “News You Can Use” broadsheet form and a semi-weekly long form treatment of subjects, similar to items like the London Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement.
Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Comment policy involves trade-offs IMO. I’ve observed that many “alternative”news sites attract people with a cluster of contrary opinions including views on things like gold, Covid, and immigration. Hosts of these sites allow the posting of comments of very fringe views as long as some level of civility is maintained. MoA is an example as are Larry Johnson and Andrej Martyanov’s blogs. NC comments have always been an echo chamber — that probably attracts those looking for like minded views and is ignored by people who otherwise find value, but may be offputting to potential new readers.

Reading all the comments together, the response feeling/impression that comes to me is that NakedCapitalism is not a product and readers are not a marketplace. I do not have any good suggestions for how to increase the number of readers. My sense of the public in the small parts of the world I know is that people are frightened and cannot face what they know is happening deep down in their assessment of things to come. The u.s. Empire is dying and thrashing about damaging itself and the rest of the world. People know that but they do not want to think about it or acknowledge what it means. I do believe this feeling afflicts the PMC, Trump supporters — a wide spectrum of the public. People know fossil fuels and other resources are running out — but they do not want to know and put the knowledge out of their mind. People know the climate is making a transition to a much less comfortable condition, but they do not want to know or think about it. Few people I have met want to think too hard about anything.

I suppose what I am trying to say refers back to the words of Pink:
L.A. told me, “You’ll be a pop star.
All you have change is everything you are.”

I believe NakedCapitalism consistently strives and often succeeds at presenting the u.s. and the world as it is and that is not comfortable to a lot of people. NakedCapitalism points out and discusses issues and problems on a wide range of topics that are not comfortable to a lot of people. I do not know how to change people from that mindset. Strangely, being right is often worse than being wrong because of the unspoken “I told you so” people hear in their mind.

We could run a diff on donors from last year vs donors for a few years back, then ask those who dropped out why they left. Some might answer. It would be good to have actual data. And eliminate some selection bias.

Three types of WordPress plugins I have seen that might help:

1. Newsletter signup widget that is not an overlay but simply inserts itself somewhere on the page like above the comments or sometimes in the middle of the main post. I assume your so theme isn’t extremely custom coded and can handle recent plugins.

2. Plugin to turn the posts into podcasts through TTS which could possibly help maintain loyalty of existing readers or could be sold with a subscription. This should work even if the theme is heavily customized. You could always try it out as a beta option.

3. Plugin to make an ebook or even paper book out of the year’s or quarter’s posts. Or all posts from a given tag and author in a given time period. Use as a fundraising incentive or even sell on Amazon. Calpers could be its own book.

Over the years I have noticed that this site and others have moved from providing “useful” advice to “we have a problem with _______ and here is the 300th article telling us just how bad the problem is but never ever having an article that addresses what precisely the reader could do today in a practical way to ameliorate the problem. For example, count the number of articles regarding climate change that endlessly prove it is real. Now before you attack me as a climate change denier, I am not. I think it is real. I also think there are NEVER any articles of equal length provided practical useful advice that can be implemented today to take admittedly tiny tiny steps but if a billion tiny steps were taken just maybe something would change. Again using climate change articles as an example, extolling the virtues of electric cars and heat pumps and similar items costing tens of thousands of dollars only gives the reader another reason to nod in agreement and do absolutely nothing. The exact same criticism applies to “the drug price crisis” and the “health care for elders crisis” and on and on.

If you want more readers who are committed to reading and supporting this site, then forgive my blatant verbiage – Support the reader with something the reader can use today to effect however a small of change. If all you support the reader with is confirmation basis material, you will ultimately bore the reader into finding another place where the wording is more inflammatory thus reinforcing the existing bias.

I am not saying that this site should be turned into a “how to fix the _____” but rather if you want to have yet another climate change is real article, then pair it with a second article explaining precisely what you the reader could do today in a practical way to take a tiny step towards fixing _______.

You want me to support you? No problem. Support me. Don’t just feed my confirmation bias.

I wonder if Substack would be a good place to land. You could post periodic long form content there (like Big Serge) that would drive paid subscriptions, then benefit from Substack cross-recommendations. Keep x to feed the website and Substack.

My $0.02 is: Substack. I’ve read NC on and off for years, I think I discovered it during the ’08 mess. On and off because I was using the RSS feed with Feedly which only pulled in the first part of each article, then I’d have to click over to this site and use the screen reader. I started using Omnivore which can actually pull in the whole article from the RSS feed and has reliable text to speech.

I’ve never sent money until this year. Why did I do it? Because Substack somehow changed my mindset about paying for content, and as above, I was actually consuming whole articles regularly. I never got into Medium where I’m paying the company and have no idea how much the authors were getting. With Substack I pay each author directly and can interact with them.

Trying out Substack doesn’t mean you have to give up this site. You could turn off comments on the articles posted there, and drive people here to participate. It’s basically another social media site now that they have Notes. See what happens.

The Bulwark and The Rational Walk are two ‘stacks that are somewhat similar to NC. I think The Rational Walk has linked to NC at least once, though it might have been Kingswell if it was something about Buffet.

I see someone above also mentioned audio — it doesn’t need to be human produced. There are widgets you can add to the website that will speak the text such as https://www.naturalreaders.com/widget.html

Having your own app is another option. With it only being a website, it is very easy to forget it’s here and wander off being distracted by the 1001 other content sources that are able to catch our attention more easily.

Local solutions. Local radio and newspaper PSA spots to ask for input. For a broad overarching goal like environmental progress at the grass roots. Or sampling changes in attitudes. Maybe forecasting from a large network of observers. Might be interesting to see how simpler local solutions are better than huge hyper investments in things like the BRI. The trend for news, information, and commentary has gone from local to global. That’s part of the reason we are locked into assuming someone else with unlimited means or knowledge is going to solve our problems at a time when good ecology requires lots of intricate diversity.

You’ve gotten some good ideas, and I’m going to throw another out and see if it sticks: merchandise page. There are companies that will run them for you. You can tie membership to it, so if you’ve been a monthly donor for, say, 6 months you get a link for a free or discounted T-shirt or ball cap. I’d absolutely wear a naked capitalism T-shirt or hoodie and would happily buy one. You could add some slogans that are regularly said like “news you can use.”

I don’t think I can add much to the above from a European perspective. As far as I can see most of your readers here are expats, either from the US or within Europe and I suspect many people prefer to read/listen to content in their mother-tongue. There are of course those who are not or do not, not trying to stereo-type.
This could be a good time for NC to be thinking about how to get more readers, though. I sense much more openness to and interest in non-MSM news sources and analysis on Israel-Gaza than on e.g. Ukraine, where you are not allowed to have alternative views. For example, we have formed a Teams group at work for those of us with a dim view of the Israeli government’s approach in Gaza and I recommended NC to the group. Hope some of them show up and maybe stay.

Couple of points.
NC’s great advantage is its combination of highly-informed and well-written analysis on complex and important topics, buttressed by often equally highly-informed commentary. That’s why, when people ask me where to go for information about such topics, I immediately point them at you. However, it’s important to remember the gulf that separates the average NC reader from the average MSM reader, not only in terms of knowledge, but also in terms of attitudes. Are you interested in attracting the average, fair-minded and quite well-educated reader who doesn’t believe everything in the MSM, but nonetheless broadly shares consensual PMC opinions? The kind of person who is starting to have doubts about Ukraine, for example, but wouldn’t read more than a few paragraphs of an article suggesting it was all just a western conspiracy since 1997? Or the kind of person who was horrified by what was going on in Gaza, but would be put off by this or that commentator accusing their own government of complicity in genocide, for example?

I’ve been very struck by how comments on other sites which have very educated readers (Slate Star Codex is a good example) nonetheless very often display a terrible naivety and lack of knowledge about many of the subjects NC covers. I made a few comments on that site (called something else now) last year, just pointing out what some respected commentators had said about Ukraine, and was greeted not even with real hostility, but just with total incomprehension. (What do you mean the Russians are winning?) But some of the readers you want to attract will be of that type.

So I think it would be worth marketing NC as a place to go for quick, expert commentary on complex issues, but in a way that doesn’t leave new readers bewildered by the impressive degree of coverage, but also the distance from many of the opinions and analyses they habitually read. Which is a long-winded way of saying that you might want to set up some “Introduction” pages, where you take an issue like Covid or Ukraine or the US Elections, and produce a “new readers start here” guide. This would provide links to a manageable number of stories, perhaps arranged by sub-theme, with a chapeau explaining briefly the history of NC coverage, why it features a wider range of opinions than is often found in the MSM, and a few points to take away. There could then be a separate link to Comments, because the sheer length and complexity of some of them could frighten new readers, who would do better to read and absorb the article itself first. If you have the effort, then presenting selected comments only might also be a solution. Such a page, which would be updated from time to time, could be sent as a link to very large numbers of people, with the recommendation to “educate yourself here” or something, and be suitable for passing on.

On book reviews, yes, I’ve published some myself. But do we mean critical reviews of new books also reviewed elsewhere, recommendations for books that have been overlooked, or just recommendations of books we like, or all of them?

I suggest:

a. modify your product-delivery system so that your readers and commenters can build you content, and organize that content into a form that’s easily disseminated. The Links section already does a lot of the heavy-lifting. Add a “one-line summary” field, gather the links into a database, select the best ones for the week, and press “Publish”.

b. Your readers are commenting because they want to impact the situation. Give them more impact, more credit/recognition. If you can’t give them money, give them attention. Find a way to help _them_ make better use of their commenting energy. You did that with the last iteration of the newsletter, and I thought that was one of the key functions it performed.

c. Make some little e-books, and sell them. Or podcasts – I second others’ recommendations on this score. Merch is a decent income-generator, and nobody has better merch than NC. Ya got the merch, now Merchandise it; display it, promote it, put a automatic cash register on it, and gen some revenue. All the thinking and effort that goes into writing an article (some, not all articles) could be pushed just a little further to produce a booklet. Charge $5 for it. Let people buy one, and distribute many (the lost rev is made up by increased brand awareness). Ask your article-writers to publish one of these little bookets, and share the rev with them.

d. Narrow your focus some. The fire-hose of subject matter makes it harder to be really good at promotion: what’s your message? What’s your value-add? What’s the value proposition (what you give in effort and money .vs. what you get back as a reader/commenter). And NC needs promotion. It’s not just the task of delivering your message to the right person, your message (which expresses the value prop) has to be compelling in order to cut thru the barrage of info overload we’re all experiencing. What is the unique contribution NC makes? I know it, but does your as-yet-unaware target market know it?

e. Collaborate more. Every non-MSM outlet has the same prob NC does, and most of them aren’t solving it. Can you build a mechanism to take content/links from other authors, integrate it into a common offering, and get it delivered to all the contributors’ audiences? Everyone keeps their own mailing list, but all have the right to distribute the content to their list.

In sum: NC already does a huge amount of stuff right: Great readers, commenters, authors, subject matter. You already have content. Organize it into a distributable form, and make merchandise out of it. Be the aggregator / distributor that all the rest of the NC-alikes need and don’t have. Give your offering a monster of a value proposition, and sell it for way less than it’s worth. And give the commenters / collaborating authors a way to build you perfecto-ready-to-publish content.

Slashdot and Hacker News are tech focused. Spamming them with non-tech information would probably backfire. Reddit is fair game.

For what it’s worth, I’d recommend (I know it’s Google, but) making changes suggested by PageSpeed Insights in regards to page loading speed. Both Mobile and Desktop show some possible improvements.

For third party scripts, it’s possible to use something called PartyTown, which loads third party scripts in background thread WebWorkers. I haven’t used this, so ymmv. I don’t know if it’s possible to optimize DOM elements at all; Comments add a ton of DOM elements, which the browser needs to parse and render.

Looks like semantic HTML; It might be possible to do stuff like instead of header, cite, b for the author, just use a cite and CSS to make it bold. On a page with hundreds of comments, which is very common, this’ll save 12 bytes per comment, plus element an extra DOM element per comment. (Granted those bytes are going to be gzip compressed, but it’s still fewer DOM element per comment and that affects render speed, particularly on slower mobile devices.)

Adding width and height on the few images that are missing it would be an easy win. On high traffic sites, the little things can help.

NC is a community of people who care about what is happening. As Jeremy Grimm says above, most people can’t face this. But there are people like No Party, Tom Pfotzer, and myself who are overwhelmed by the firehose of Links. Used to be I could read all of today’s Links and then go on to comment. Now I must read the Comments first to see where I can comment and expect to get feedback on my thoughts. I see this ability to get informed, constructive feedback as the single most valuable feature of the NC community. But I must do it before the community moves over to Water Cooler at 2 p.m. EST. Often I will see an interesting link at 3 p.m., or 11 p.m. on Water Cooler, but if I leave a comment or a question, few if any readers will come back to that day’s Links or WC to reply.

On the assumption that frequency-of-comment is positively correlated with sense-of-community and level-of-donation, I don’t see easy ways of growing the community and donations that doesn’t entail increased moderation.

Since all politics is local, I raised the topic of virtual meetups by nation or Metro Area, not merely to organize an NC Songbook Band, but to possibly increase participation while minimizing moderation. Frequently-commented Links and Comments could be distributed to these areas and persisted for a few days, allowing for more sustained discussion, possibly with reduced moderation. (No doubt comment frequency would need to be adjusted for comment length. As ambrit notes, humor is a bonding element for the community, but I doubt it alone significantly drives donations.)

I think Mark Gisleson suggested another reorganization along these lines, by Topic. But topics strike me as more difficult. They can be multi-dimensional, and this could require difficult curation and/or some kind of tf/idf clustering.

If community members were willing to declare a geographic “allegiance”, comments could also be sorted by locality. Such “virtual meetups” could increase a sense of community commitment and, perhaps, donations.

My thought is to publish your newsletter and/or original content on Substack. May be some opportunity there for subscribers and visibility.

If I came across the naked capitalism name in my general reading, I would be much more inclined to click through to your site if your descriptor Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power was also visible.

I’ve gotten a number of people to listen to you via podcast interview/discussion and that in turn seemed to be what was needed to get them to check out your site. You’ve got such a great site, hope you come up with effective new ideas to keep it all going and growing Yves.

From my perspective, NC is not readily digestible by many. It requires substantial effort/time to comprehend the diversity of Links. Most folks today consume their information in videos. NC is a word/text dominated site because the ideas presented require accurate description (nuance). I, personally, like the mental concentration that it takes to comprehend NC content. Others, no so much.

I do visit YouToob sites for info, but find them essentially time wasting: Mercouris has a marvelous vocabulary but dances around his topics; The Duran is better, but only slightly so; Michael Hudson is better—but I find his books/writing to be more instructive than the video fare. Give me insightful, elegant writing and I’m in heaven. (Thank you Commentariat for taking your time to present coherent comments.)

There will be places people go to interact with and hear from actual people and places people go to be propagandized by bots and algos.

A WaPo article on Dave Barry, and why humor is so important, and as far as i’m concerned, I prefer the dark meat-which has always been prominent around these parts.

Though Barry isn’t an opinion writer, he manages to convey what he thinks while also making us laugh. Does the awfulness of news put a damper on humor? On the contrary, terrible times mean humor is necessary.

“People love to laugh,” Barry said, “but it’s gotten harder and harder to find places where it’s allowed.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/04/dave-barry-political-discourse-humor/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry if this is long and rambles. It does end with a suggestion.

Like “furnace” said above, play to your strengths. Given that you want to keep your own high standards, you are, as you explain, seeking to find people who belong in your audience, rather than trying to garner more views from people who don’t.

I think I came to NC from hearing about it on the Duran (which I subscribed to after listening to a single (!) program on Youtube). The MSM is so horrible that people are actively looking for something better. And as a result there is beginning to be more of a community of high quality alternatives, ranging from the Duran, to Judge Napolitano, to Glen Greenwald and Moon of Alabama and various Substack writers. It’s great when you get a mention, as you do from time to time, on one of these independent sites or programs. I thought it was marvelous publicity when you joined one of the Duran’s discussions. NC is also, without peer, I think, the best guide to what is going on in this broader community of independent journalists. For me this is important because I don’t always want to listen to a long video, or read another Substack article, but if if something really important turns up, it will almost certainly get a mention on NC.

But the community I described above is all about national and international news. There is a whole other realm in people are also moving away from the mainstream media: Local news. I noticed the other day (still winding our way toward an actual suggestion) that you referenced a Flatwater Free Press story about the corporate buy up of Nebraska farmland. I live in Nebraska, where the two largest newspapers, the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World Herald, are now controlled by Lee Enterprises. Furthermore, the state’s smaller newspapers are in some sort of consortium with the larger ones, so that the news they publish is all filtered through Lee Enterprises. Lee Enterprises’ newspapers suck. They actively promote ignorance. Flatwater Free Press is just about the only high quality regular Nebraska news source that will engage with controversial topics. (Sometimes the local reporting from NPR stations and Harvest Public Media will contribute, but not so regularly and they suffer some reluctance to engage in controversy).

On occasion, I have found similar high quality independent local or regional news sites in other states.

So my suggestion would be to set up a page at NC, let’s call it “Links to Local” that has a map of the U.S. states. If you click on Nebraska you get links to the Flat Water Free Press site, and maybe a mention of its now defunct predecessor (still important for the articles it contained) Prairie Fire Newspaper, now available only through the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine. Here’s a sample from that: https://web.archive.org/web/20160405061813/http://prairiefirenewspaper.com/2015/09/oil-culture-and-what-small-places-have-to-teach-us

This could be done for many states… take a look for example at West Virginia’s Mountain State Spotlight: https://mountainstatespotlight.org/ as another example.

Maybe after a while you could also link to the “three top stories in November” for each state… And those too could come up, along with the outlets themselves, when you click on a state.

The point of doing this is that the writers and readers at such outlets are often your kind of people. If people find their own links on a site, they are more likely to mention the site, and spread the word about it. Such a page would also be a very interesting resource on its own, it if were well curated. You will have to think about whether the extra trouble would be worth it.

NC might be able to build a bigger audience by gradually becoming known as the place to go for exciting discussions, debates and articles about an emerging new politics beyond traditional left and right.

For example, based on my reading of the recent Steve Keen Michael Hudson conversation, the issue of the future direction of capitalism (finance gone from being a servant of capitalism to a parasite of capitalism, or they make their rent without enterprise, without earning) in itself has the potential to generate a much larger readership, if these types of insights are highlighted and discussed and expanded upon.

Do not align yourself with sites like Moon of Alabama but instead become known as the place to go to articulate what is now largely unarticulated–that traditional left and right thinking is inadequate to what we are now facing on a political, economic and cultural level.

I”m betting that the audience for this type of analysis is already huge and will only continue to grow.

I find the search function kind of weak on nakedcapitalism. I don’t think it is unique to this site.

How about a generative AI bot that is trained on the material from this site, and other independent sites. This could then become a collective knowledge that smaller news sites could host and help promote historical and current content from high quality smaller sites to a larger range of viewer.

This may seem like a bizarre suggestion (and perhaps it is) – is there a way to get NC on Tik Tok? Is there a way to broaden the appeal of NC beyond what seems to be an older demographic? Younger people seem to be getting more engaged in world affairs, and they still use social media, so perhaps social media can provide an entre to a younger demographic. One day Yves may be able to pass the baton to someone who can carry on the good work of NC for future decades.

I suspect you’ve already considered this, but I think a lot of the listeners to the radio war nerd podcast and members of the associated Facebook group would be interested in this site. (I think I initially discovered it via its predecessor, the website exiledonline)

I’m getting to be an old duffer so I’ll probably stick to sending out emails, but I’m going to target my kid’s peer group because I think reaching out to my own peers is a bit of a dead end. They seem to have all settled into various pockets of the PMC which can self identify as left or right, but seem to be firmly stuck around the year 2000 as to the state of the world and our country. I suppose that’s not a bad place to be stuck if you have the money and the assets to pull it off, and many of them do (mostly due to inherited family wealth/real estate, but all firmly believe the path to being a millionaire is just around the corner for anyone).

As to advice on how to reach more people – I’m not competent to recommend the means to do so, but judging from (again) conversations with my daughter and her peers, target young people. They seem to be completely aware that the American Dream that your kids do better than the parents is by now a complete myth, but most of them can barely remember 9/11, and have no memory of the 60’s-80’s for comparison to the present day or as a road map of how we got where we are.

Given that many of us found your site during the GFC, I would not be surprised if we’re all a bit on the old side. Bringing in new content contributors has been very good. Would it be possible to find like minded younger people using newer platforms (X, YT, TikTok, etc) and cross pollinate a bit?

Something as good as NC is tricky to change. One of the things that makes it trustworthy, or at least avoids those nagging little “in whose interest” question marks, for instance, is its non commercial non marketing approach. Combine that with the caliber of posts and that of the comment section, (not necessarily in that order) it’s a very compelling environment in which one is more willing than might otherwise be the case to learn from as well as simply to examine the ideas and content presented.

I don’t need to go on here, everyone knows what I”m talking about, but then you have the problem of how to communicate this to others who know nothing about NC and it’s not as simple as it sounds. The minute that evangelical glint comes into your eye, never mind your voice, people say, “Well, gotta run, but great talking to you,… etc., etc., not quite that blunt but you get the idea. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so. I wonder if a more casual way of pointing to NC as an interesting site worth a visit wouldn’t get better results. I don’t know the answer, but the issue has puzzled me for quite a while.

All of the above give and take sets me to thinking that the time is right for an Alt Reuters service.

This is going to be fairly long, because I am writing from my experience as a managing editor of periodicals as well as an acquiring and developmental editor (most of my career) for textbooks in the sciences, math, statistics, law, and history.

It is no secret that I read Fatto Quotidiano each morning here in the Undisclosed Region, largely because it is influential, well written, and an unrelenting critic of softheaded right/left wingers, the Ukrainian government, Meloni and famiglia, Russia, Israel, Hamas, and Ursula van der Leyen.

Sound familiar?

Now, FQ has been aggressive in many media and in “outreach” to its readers. I am going to mention a few here and would like to elicit responses.

FQ has a paper edition each day. It has a web site that changes throughout the day. FQ has an on-line magazine plus a monthly paper magazine of ideas called Millennium. FQ has a school for citizens, which was run by a distinguished sociologist, who died recently, unfortunately. (The replacements look good.) The school for citizens centers on critical thinking and on the Italian constitution, which is a remarkable document.

FQ has a yearly “festival,” al fresco in Roma, where many prominent politicians (Conte, Fratoianni, Schlein, even Crosetto) as well as writers / intellectuals come to speak in front of crowds.

I can think of a Naked Capitalism school. It is a service that NC already offers in the form of interviews with Michael Hudson and Tom Frank.

FQ has an extensive presence on YouTube. There is a Fatto Quotidiano channel. Several of the editors and writers, but especially co-founder Marco Travaglio and “master putinist” Alessandro Orsini are often found on La7 with Lilli Gruber. There is also a discussion channel related to FQ run by Luca Sommi.

FQ has three daily newsletters. This is aggressive. It also has seven topical weekly newsletters. Consult this link. It isn’t in English. But do you like what you see? Would a newsletter landing page for Naked Capitalism work?

https://shop.ilfattoquotidiano.it/newsletter/

Note the directness of their newsletters:
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/fq-newsletter/il-fatto-economico-del-20-novembre-2023/

A weekly dose of an important topic. Economics, Italian and international.

All of which is to say: What outlets does Naked Capitalism have the resources to explore and produce in?

Naked Capitalism might have a daily “Here’s the News” newsletter. Then, weekly
—U.S. politics (the horserace),
–Econned, the scandal of economics,
–the New World Majority,
–Trends (?), such as climate change, ecology, “simple living,” the joys of gardening,
–deep dive into European issues,
–Latin American developments.
–Plus a War Bulletin.

That’s seven weekly newsletters.

Which would take a full-time employee. Let’s keep staffing in mind.

I’d also consider a YouTube presence, maybe Rumble. But Yves Smith and Lambert Strether have been writing under their noms de blog for years and aren’t the likely hosts, unless they want the public unveiling. Yet what about Conor Gallagher and Nick Corbishley? Deliver the reports as video, place the transcripts here on-line.

The problem with YouTube is that it is like old-school blogging. You have to post every day. It is possible that the YouTube channel for Naked Capitalism could interview (and post transcripts here) from some rising journalists and commenters like Sabrina Salvati (Sabby Sabs), Katie Halper, Abby Martin, Rania Khalek, Rhyd Wildermuth, and Garland Nixon.

Yet that requires a producer with a background in video production.

But it can be done. The question in product development in the media, though, is always: Do we require this extra doo-dad? Does the textbook have to have a workbook for students?

The big problem is that every one of these media outlets requires much content. Some can be used and reused. Sometimes, one cannot do so.

The only “influencer” I know of who gets away with posting videos every month or two almost randomly—and then getting 3 million views—is ShoeOnHead (June Lapine)—who is a goddess, of course.

It’s a lot of work to take things to the next level—which would be a bigger presence across several media, it seems to me. And there’s the problem of having to spend money to increase visibility.

I think introducing people without as much historical context also would need to include a bit of guidance. Better chance of them sticking around.

How about pairing your written content with video?

Have a YouTube/Rumble/TikTok account on which you’d post someone reading the daily links and water cooler. Not necessarily word for word but pack in some great content in 10 minutes or less.

Another idea I’ve always like is hosting a sports debate style show ala Around the Horn where you have a moderator and 4 panelists (which could be made up of the NC Commentariat) talk about daily topics. There’s some cool OBS software out there.

Specialize on book reviews text/video will do the trick, your subjects are too broad to cover with enough competency.
There are lots of people out there with no time to read a 400 pages book but would love to get the essence and unbiased critique in 20 min. Specialize on it and be good at it, you will be surprised at the interest. Ignore the rest, or maybe once a month you can explore some current politics, it will give a better perspective also. And do not ban any comments unless absolutely necessary.

I discovered NC from a cross-post at BoingBoing back when (I think) Cory Doctorow was there, before they became a partisan, propagandist wasteland (10+ years now, cheers NC)…

This site could use a redesign; I don’t believe it has changed much since its inception. Someone I once directed to it complained the format was confusing, I.e. not user-friendly, and I’m inclined to agree. The orange theme is garish and hard on the eyes, the “recent items” list at the top of every page is very distracting from the content and on mobile takes up the entire screen when it loads. There isn’t enough separation between regular-article posts and our mainstays “links” + “water cooler”, so when you encounter them you are simply overwhelmed, without a true appreciation for the value they offer.

That said, the only people in America being educated at a standard to approach this content now, are those who stand to benefit from what it condemns.

The internet landscape has changed markedly… and if you are not on social media, you are unlikely to be seen. I follow the Howard Zinn Education Project on instagram, and I think they might be a good model to follow.

Great to see so much interest in keeping things going.

I wonder what it would be like if it were possible to tap into the NC psychographic. One thing the internet – potentially, anyway – can do is connect geographically and maybe even demographically disparate groups (as long as one stays away from algorithmically driven sites). Pandemic aware folk and those who don’t accept the idea that voting tribalism is the solution to problems seem like possible candidates. I was surprised at some of the people I saw attend a local meetup.

I would support a subscription based solution since.

Naked Capitalism is the old London coffee house. Frequented by rarified IQs, moderated with established norms and fueled by incessant curiosity. The proprietors are asking for business advice. Methinks, serve the coffee in improved ways and raise the price.

I don’t have any short-term answers to the question of increasing readership other than litigation against Google. My hope is that some of these cases working through the court system will ease some of your suffering. A robust Supreme Court ruling on the censorship case may be all that is needed to reverse the trend. As others have stated, I have widely spread the magnificence of NC to everyone I know and not one has engaged–they have their bubble worlds and reality is a downer.

The one thing I wish NC did that you don’t already do is allow me to find a way to connect locally with other NC readers. A Meet-Up type function where readers could input their zip-code and find others in their area would foster the type of community that I need and a follow-on result of those local communities might be an increased reader base. Many here have commented on the sense of community they find at NC and are looking for ways to increase that aspect as a means of drawing more people in. I say take that one step further and have some sort of opt-in system where we can find each other off-line to form real systems of solidarity.

We are in a crisis of loneliness and solitude because we have moved our social interactions online. It has weakened our ability to fight back against the powers like Google who can simply press a button and silence us. Isn’t it time for us to reconnect, form real bonds that last, and take back our power? I think the long-term way to increase the impact of NC and bring in more eyeballs is to do something the other sites aren’t doing, to challenge the existing system of siloed interactions and start the process of reminding us that we are a social species.

When I invite NC readers to my home to teach stained-glass, or bread baking, or go for a long hike, the conversations will not need moderating, there will be no trolls, and we will all re-learn how to engage in civil discussions again, how to disagree again without shooting each other in the face. People who are critical thinkers will seek out these types of social interactions and in return NC will benefit from a stronger, more connected readership simply by fostering humanity. This is no short-term fix but it could be a long-term game changer when it comes to limiting the power of Google. And it doesn’t seem like it would require much in the way of resources to make this happen. Simply let us connect to each other off-line and in return you get an army of free-thinkers who’s gratitude may result in real and long-term revenue security. I know this is not your goal for NC but if not you then who? If not now then when? Who will be the first to take an online community and make it real, touchable, solid?

I imagine I’m rather useless on this point since I like the site the way it is, and appreciate it enormously.

I think one of the things that makes NC difficult for new readers is that it is hard to get a feel for the site when visiting for the first time. There are a lot of things that regular readers are familiar with and take for granted that can be confusing or a little arcane for someone who has never visited the site before.

For example, while the links pages are obvious to regular readers, a newcomer could benefit from a simple blurb at the top stating “Recent news links from around the web suggested by NC readers, arranged by general category. Inclusion here does not necessarily indicate approval of the views expressed or of the source by NC, but are simply taking the temperature around the web on a given topic” or something to that effect. Including “Suggested by ______” instead of just including the commenter’s name in parentheses would be helpful, because a new reader won’t know what (furzy) or (Userfriendly) means. Lambert’s repeated text regarding his backdated post about the Democrat party could benefit from some context or a short sentence of explanation, as well. Even the “antidote du jour” could use a bit of explanation. New readers might wonder why random nature photos are featured repeatedly on an economics and politics site.

Basically, add some explanation and context to everything that I find myself having to explain to people when I try to recommend the site to them.

I was thinking about how I use /. , Hacker news (YC), and your link section (NC): I have a base (/., YC, NC) and I look at an article at the targeted website. I do not visit the targeted website beyond that page, because I expect to get the most value from the base. (Indeed, as you probably know yourselves, many people don’t even read the fine article at the target website, and just stay at the base.)

So when you are the target, not the base, your task is to demonstrate to people who come from a different base, that you provide value that would be of interest to them… that you have sufficient content value that it’s worth remembering you exist, and checking you out from time to time.

This means that instead of just having links up top to recent articles, you have links to articles relevant to visitors from other bases, at the end of the page, or interspersed with it (not at the top, because they’ll just skip them there, since their goal is to get to the content their base got them interested in, whereas at the bottom, they are looking for the next thing). What articles should you link to? Obviously articles on the same topic, but also you can probably use the referrer metadata provided by their browser to determine where they came from, and therefore what kinds of articles might be of greater interest to them (/. / YC: tech, history.reddit.com: history, finance.reddit.com : finance, etc).

People who came from your own front page could be shown the same layout as today… they’re used to it.

The one thing I can think of is building a collection of ‘educational posts’ based on old content that are designed to appeal to new readers without a long history with the site. Topics like CALPERs and MMT and UBER come to mind. The posts from the IM doc would be a story in itself — his commentary on the studies behind the COVID vaccine still stands out to me.

The goal would not be to promote them directly but to give me and others something to share with my friends and family who might become readers. I personally rely on NC as a new aggregator as much as anything else but that’s not what I think would draw people in. It is really the depth on certain topics that stands out from other sources.

Apologies if I’m repeating suggestions. I came to use NC about 5 years ago following Yves being interviewed by Harry Shearer on Le Show. A few thoughts:
1. The site format may be tweaked:
A. I commonly read NC on my phone. I work on a laptop for at least 8 hours a day and use my phone is for personal browsing. When the site opens the screen is filled entirely with the banner and Recent Items. The first time I used the site I clicked on one of these links but the screen didn’t change. I thought something was wrong and it took a moment to realize there was a change – the link color changed! I then scrolled down and found the article. Whenever I forward articles to friends it’s usually in a text message (I use no social media), and I need to mention to scroll down for the start of the article. Perhaps reduce the number of Recent Items displayed (only that day’s, or three) so the article title shows.
B. When it’s fund raising time, I suggest adding that to the banner so it’s prominently displayed at the top of every page. Something short with contrasting text as the link: It’s Our Fundraiser! We Need You! Please DONATE! Repeat this donation link in the middle of the daily Links; reading may become routine for some, focusing only on the links and not noticing there is a fund raiser.
C. Move the Tip Jar to immediately follow the article. It’s currently after the comments, and keeps getting pushed down further out of sight (by the stellar comments!).
2. As a possible new feature that may bring in traffic, how about creating a curated timeline of articles for certain important topics? For example, what if after the Hamas attacks there was a timeline of relevant articles (those provided as links within Links and Water Cooler) that would expand each day on the subject of Gaza? There is a fire hose of news every day and having a source for such a reference would be helpful. I appreciate that Topics are already offered, and that determining a topic to expand in this way would be difficult…but certainly better than anything Google does!
3. Reader supplied articles? Forgive me if the policy on this is stated (I’ve not looked), but perhaps articles from readers that are outside the normal content would help bring in outside traffic. Last xmas we rented a Tesla from Hertz and I took detailed notes on the experience. Total charging costs and miles traveled, battery use for nearly every trip made and the corresponding miles and air temp. I’ve not had time to compile, but I’ve wondered if there would be interest is such an article at NC.

Lastly, while I certainly would like to see NC expand its offerings and increase its funding, if NC was only Links, Water Cooler and Comments, it would continue to be my main source of news and my funding would continue unchanged. Many thanks to Yves and Lambert and the others that have produced a very special site!

Just one person here, but I’ve an extreme aversion to PayPal- that being said I just subscribed at the $30 tier as I never realized I could create a subscription without registering for PayPal.

My only suggestion would be using GumRoad or an alternative where I can name-my-price for subscriptions.

Would love to pay to remove ads and enable a dark mode feature for the entire website.

As far as long term viability ideas; I can only say play to & don’t discount the site’s strengths/secret sauce. I got here from Monthly Review myself, if that tidbit helps.

In the interest of increasing readership, as well as begin solving a problem by exhausting the simplest solutions, I have to imagine myself seeing the website for the first time. Quite frankly, it’s rather drab.
When I open the NC page, at the top is NC spelled out in black old fashioned typewriter letters. Below that in shadow letters is “Fearless commentary…” This tells me “what you are” but it doesn’t tell me “why you are.” Is it for ending political corruption, free press, politics for the people, a new political party, or to paraphrase Obama, “an economy you can believe in.” I think the “why” is what makes people want to be a part of something.
When I view YouTube, adds pop-up which you can normally cancel after 5-seconds. Personally, I’m fascinated how much effort and cleverness goes in to those first 5-seconds to keep your attention. I imagine you have, at most, 1 or 2-minutes to convince some first time viewer that you are a source of fearless commentary.
When I continue with NC, you first see Recent Items—which I think can be moved—replaced with a bold headline or two. At the top is Links which by itself, for a first time viewer, means nothing, followed by other bullets.
The first article is “Europe Is Getting Record Amounts of Russian Gas Through TurkStream. So Who Keeps Trying to Blow It Up?” However, above it is a photo of some sea creature, as part of Links, when you could easily have an interesting photo of Biden, CIA Director Burns, or some other public figure.
I like the animal photos and I admire Hudson and Keen, but again, above the article “How Finance Capitalism Ruined the World – Dr. Michael Hudson & Dr. Steve Keen,” has a photo of a handsome cat who looks like it’s living better than I am. A photo of people living in their car or a bombed out building might quickly and better convey the phrase “Ruined the World” to a first time viewer.
Below “Blow It Up” there is a subheading but you could also include text from the story itself like,”Ukraine Energy Minister German Galushchenko declared…Ukraine fully aims to attack Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure.” Try turning up the volume to 11.

One thing I see working among websites for dissidents is cross-promotion. Nate Hagens will host a roundtable discussion with Kate Raworth and Vandana Shiva and others. Those two will jump on their various social media accounts and promote the discussion, their followers come to Nate’s site to watch the roundtable, some of them stick and Nate’s subscription numbers grow.

I would love to see Yves interview or moderate a discussion with Raworth, Shiva, or Hagens. It would be great if Lambert would interview Leonardi or Frank. Conor could do interviews as well. It would require a Rumble or Youtube channel and time to set up and prepare for each interview. I’ll bet a lot of people would be ready to find time to be interviewed by the NC brain trust, and it would be a way to expose the site to the kind of people who would be inclined to become NC regulars and supporters.

One off the wall idea: Lambert’s debate skills might be a draw if he were to invite some Covid minimizers or PMC defenders of the status quo. A big time demand, I know, but controversy draws eyeballs these days.

It seems to me that Twitter is where your demographic can be found. I would experiment by picking one or two of your established beats, find the relevant hashtags, and start tweeting and also retweeting others. I know, bandwidth. But if you are going to start doing anything extra, Twitter could be high reward.

Make a dark-mode version of the site.

Add a message board.

Make some merchandise. (T-shirts, hats, mugs, hoodies, pens, notepads, phone/iPad protectors)

Create a Twitter account, build a following and post daily updates on your timeline.

The number of times that “coverage of Ukraine” was mentioned as a reason to leave the site, or the site being “pro Russian” as a reason to not share links just goes to show how incredibly effective the Russia Russia Russia propaganda was. So dreadful.
Lambert asked in an email a few weeks ago for thoughts on improvements that could be made. I have few ideas, none really worth mentioning. I think you stick to your guns. Cover what you want and cover it how you want. Stick with longform style. You style and content is right on.
The real question is a business question, not a style or content question. How to get more exposure? More traffic. No ideas on that. But I would like to encourage you to not deviate from what makes so many of us like (and value) you all so much.

How about an occasional ‘themed’ NC, all health/medical items, or climate, economics, etc. Now and then, mostly cats or animals, something ‘fun’? These could easily be compiled into small ebooks. People love ‘swag’ used as rewards for donations. I would love a calendar of antidote photos.

I think others have mentioned this, but I’ll add also that the site could be tweaked a bit to help newcomers get oriented.

(1) For example, there are a number of key concepts that are essentially “assumed knowledge” for readers of NC, e.g., PMC, MMT, symbol manipulation, Jackpot, etc. I have seen people repeatedly get tripped up over these, posting “what does this mean?” comments. It would not be a lot of work to add introductory overviews of each of these concepts — say, two articles per month —, and gather them under a new section on the right sidebar.

(2) Encourage readers to subscribe, instead of only donating, to get a more steady revenue stream.

Most times I visit the site, I don’t go through email links but a web search. Probably naive and farting against thunder, but at least my search for you registers somewhere?