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Great synergy, no sarcasm here. Both camps are needed and keep the blend going. You’re lucky to have partners who watch over the analytical side of the biz so you can pump out hammy content. They also put out great stuff for sure, but sometimes a bit of off the wall stuff works like a spice. Noicely done.
The testing of different meats as bumper guards was brilliant. Made me a Torch fan for life.
Engagement is more than just single clicks. Weird ass stories like that might not draw huge numbers but they may connect with a certain kind of weirdo who will then come back for years to come and even follow a writer to a new publication.
Jason “Han Solo” Torchinsky. “Never tell me the odds”
No charts, only VIBES.
I’ve had jobs with operations execs (my peers) were GLUED to the analytics. They had automated reports emailed to them in the morning, and were drawing freak-out inferences at the first hint of a drop in some metric or other. Never once did anyone ever sit down and work out the actual, technically defined statistical significance of those dips and rises. They were just “look, line go uppy, we need to ten-x this next month!” Or “look, line go downy, we need to work weekends to stop the bleeding.”
After a while I kinda rolled my eyes and tuned them out.
Sure, analytics are important, and vital, but not every data point is meaningful and not every change is actionable.
All I could think of when reading the original post was jalopnik / deadline vs the herb. Wasn’t that all about ‘the vibe’ vs Analytics ?
> a speculum or a set of kitchen knives
Umm ok
At least that’s ‘a speculum or a set of kitchen knives’ not ‘and‘.
Yes, but is it one person making that choice? And what does that person do for a living?
Sushi chef?
You are all demonstrating a great source of pain for me: the difference between quantitative and qualitative measurement.
We have goals every year and they all must have measurable results. But there are so many things we should have at least some focus on that cannot be measured quantitatively. And qualitative measurement is so difficult to validate and usually too costly to even try.
If you have any creativity in a job that you either produce or manage you likely understand. Approximately zero percent of managers in corporate America understand this distinction.
*skims screenshots*
So… are we going to be seeing any more ham-related content?
Hamtopian.
Would subscribe.
Every member receives a tin of potted meat.
Can we get a deep dive into the steamed ham culture of Albany?
Hey @Matt, can you send me a screenshot of the New Relic frontpage real quick?
OOOOH SHOTS FIRED
If this isn’t COTD then there truly is no god.
Pls clarify so we can enjoy the yoke.
Newrelic is a website performance and reliability analytics tool. Kinda like chartbeat for tech teams. 10001010 is implying that Matt is ignoring the site’s technical performance issues, like Jason is ignoring the site’s editorial performance metrics.
yup, COTD
Torch, your articles are pure gold. Don’t let the numbers convince you otherwise.
“things like those little trays dentists used to cast dental molds”
Queue DT’s joke:
When is the best time to go to the dentist?
2:30 because your tooth hurty!
Ooh, that’s a missed opportunity right there lol
Torch, I feel this in my bones.
I am the one and only graphic artist in a company of engineers. The blank looks I get when I extol the benefits of new imagery with improved shading is matched by utter confusion on my face when they insist upon discussing hyperthreading and other gobbledygook.
I don’t wanna know. They don’t wanna know. We are ships passing in the night.
All I can think of is Chandler and the WENUS, Matt and David are looking at the WENUS and the WENUS isn’t happy, and Jason isn’t one of those guys that worries about the WENUS.
Chartbeat appears to apply the same kind of pressure on two of you that social media does on high-schoolers.
You have discovered your secret sauce, don’t mess with it.
Hm. I have never heard of Chartbeat. I should at least check it out. My Autopian membership and reading articles on the clock is really paying off big time!
Update: it seems to be highly geared toward editorial vs ecommerce so I will remain Chartbeat free, just like my idol, JT.
We are over-metricised these days. We can measure an astonishing number of things, but we don’t really know what most of it means or whether any of it is important.
For example, I work in an industry (software development) that can track all kinds of work activity and can generate all manner of charts based on various metrics.
The hope is that efficiencies will be gained over time, but the problem is that the work is rarely executed twice, meaning we are always in a state of learning.
It’s continuously all new ground to be gained… once, so how can we be expected to increase “productivity” when we are forging new ground every sprint?
In my mind, the only metric that matters is Delivery. To what did we commit in a particular time frame and what did we deliver?
What else matters?
The engineer lives by the data and the designer couldn’t give half a fuck. Gee. Who woulda thunk it.
As an engineer who works with other engineers almost exclusively, I relate to David too well to not appreciate how differently Torch operates. I fear the day Jason conforms to what the data says, because that’s the day Jason stops being the oddball character that is my rain of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy-with-a-chance-of-engineer day (not to discredit the other fine writers here at The Autopian, who are excellent in their own right).
Torch is that friend who isn’t always at the bar with the group but when he comes, you some how end up at 2AM on a train because “vodka here tastes weird” and end up in the drunk tank in Estonia.
We love the group but we NEED that friend.
Yup. I’m an engineer who had one of those friends when I was younger. Those were some of the best days of my life. Thankfully, I’m still in touch with him, but he has a wife and two kids now, so he’s slowed down a tad.
Yeah life happens.
I befriended a guy a few weeks back and the second time we met he just asked me to meet him to engine swap a snow mobile at 7PM. The thing was driving 48h later.
I think I may have found one!
I can see both sides. On e one hand, there’s probably useful information in there, like “mention Tesla in a headline and traffic goes up by 10%”. On the other hand, I suspect a lot of what differentiates the response to different articles is not quantifiable, it’s more ‘vibes based’. So obsessing over the numbers will only get you so far.
I think of it like the folks I’ve worked with – there are always trends in the data, but knowing how to spot the ones that matter, and then knowing what to do with those trends, isn’t always obvious. Sometimes intuition matters more than data.
I’m going to be honest when I read Chartbeat I started thinking why are they referencing 1970 teen girls idol magazines? But my real shock was DT knowing who Bret Favre was, knowing it was sports, and then failed at the end not properly articulate basic defense in year 3. I assume Elise (not her real name) was assisting DT on modern terms and such but then had to take a poo and DT failed at the reference.
Don’t look for what else isn’t happening, Matt. You probably don’t want to know!
If Torch adapted his writing to try and assuage the Chartbeat overlords he would quickly become a pale imitation of the Torch we all know and love.
Press never change, Jason.
Fight the power, Torch! Treat it like a bad report card- if you dont look at it, the grades are whatever you want it to be!
I would call this theory Torchinskys Box, but after your porny starts I am not sure I should.
Well, we’re all here watching him at least so that goes in his favor, measurement-wise.
I have a phrase for this when I’m selling myself in interviews and on the Discord begging MH to let me help unbust the site: “benevolent adversary.” Also known as red teaming, it’s someone on your side working to poke holes in your proposed (or extant!) solution so you can build a more robust solution.
Except in this case, it’s not a technical or engineering challenge, but an editorial one: what would happen if I ran an article that was an overview of all cars released the same year vienna sausages were introduced, and do the cars or the sausages hold up better?
And, unlike a technical solution, Torch is building a social and community one: oddball charm that’s miles apart from the high-horsepower wankery and supercar salivation that’s anywhere, everywhere else.
Plus, if you make him do anything that raises his blood pressure he’s prone to blow another hose.
He’s gotta get that Mickey Mouse flange replaced!
Jason is not just an artist of automotive prose. He’s an “artiste” and creates not for the numbers, ney, but for the the thrill of creation itself! Tre magnifique! Now view his canned hams and touch the finger of GOD!
Now view his canned hams and touch the
fingerbumper of GOD!FTFY
For those who want to watch it again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im2hXZ_diy0
Interesting that he didn’t mention TANF fraud there.