Astrophsx

Something I haven't seen mentioned is that the "clicks" may be coming from Google searches. Try typing in a search with "XXX airline first class" or " xxx hotel suite". You will find that typically the top 5-10 websites listed have at least one blogger. So it may be a way to drive traffic to their page. I don't think many people are looking up information on coach seats (other than seatguru). I think more people research seats when they are premium.

Also... a majority of bloggers are not going to detail a majority of products they will have to pay full price for out of pocket. You won't see boutique hotels very often and you aren't going to see bloggers paying for a ticket with cash unless it is something that is going to have a good ROI.

In order to get the most amount of credit card sign ups it is important for a blogger to show readers obtainable travel that can be obtained with miles/points. They have to sell you on the dream before they can sell you on the cards.

CMK10

That's okay, my primary carrier is Delta so I can't talk.

bthotugigem05

I'm going to review The Wing early next week. You all just wait, you'll never believe these cabana things they have.

kokonutz

Unless, of course, you are Denied a Cabana at Cathay Pacific’s “The Wing” First Class Lounge

1848

This is especially funny to me because I see much of FT (and much of the various bloggers audience) as those in the corporate and/or finance world. From what I understand DL is about the only airline that is standing on solid ground in regards to those worlds, yet they receive nothing but scorn.

BTW, that is just my very layman's opinion of the matter.

CRAZ8

One thing I think a lot of clued in people - in this case, FT readers - miss, is that normal people don't often notice stuff the first time around. And normal people are the ones that make content producers the big bucks, mainly because there are so many of them. To compensate for this, they have to write the same thing again, and again, and again. It helps that Google tries to find new stuff to promote, and the google juice from multiple articles helps the bloggers get to the top of results.

As an example, someone I know recently ran a kickstarter for some books he's written. He constantly tweets about it (at least 200+), sends kickstarter progress emails, the first book's been on Amazon for a month, and today someone tweets to him today: "Noticed the new book is out - have I been living under a rock?" Well, yup. Most people, for the purposes of this discussion, are living under a rock, and the repetition is necessary to have any chance of reaching them at all.

It feels spammy to the people paying attention, but is a part of the dance that content producers must take part in to get to the regular folk.

sbm12

I'm not sure which (probably several) of the threads here has concerns about how all you read is the same trip report over and over again and why isn't there more diversity of content. I generally happen to agree and don't often write about my flights, but maybe I should.

My traffic volume yesterday was pretty solid. Definitely consistent with what I've seen for the first 6 weeks of this year if I publish a couple stories. So in that sense I'd argue is it a reasonably "average" day to evaluate from. I posted three stories. One about a UA BF flight, one about DL's idiotic seat assignments and one about SPG point values. I happen to think that only the SPG post is really valuable but the others were quick to write and somewhat entertaining so I pushed them. Those three posts represented ~58% of the traffic on my blog for the day. And the "stupid" trip report got the most page views, about 10% more than the DL seat assignment story.



Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? Because that's where the money was. Seems like that might be the same thing for bloggers and trip reports.

Just some food for thought.

And, no, I'm not going to write more of the same trip reports. Mostly because I don't fly the same trips nearly as much and I still mostly think writing them is boring.

FallenPlat

A corollary here that bears emphasis is that all trip reports aren't created equal. Techgirl (Jetsetter's Homestead) has said that her mainstream -- read "repetitive" -- hotel reviews garner way more eyeballs than do reports about more out-of-the-way places that haven't been reviewed before.

Maybe I'm confusing entertainment value with actual utility. For entertainment, I'm not going to read the same stuff twice. For deciding whether to spend my hard-earned points at the Paris XXX or the Paris YYY, maybe I'd try to read all the reviews I could possibly find.

Since I generally don't stay in chain hotels myself, I'm kind of guessing here.

dhammer53

Seth,

Your blog is interesting and enjoyable because it's not a me too blog. ^

kokonutz

Concur. ^

Let others be the USA Today of blogs. I, for one, appreciate your The Economist approach. ^

stackm

This may be true. I notice Mommy Points is just now publishing the Maldives trip report - from last April. If she felt it would have been a groundbreaking series she likely would have published it sooner.

Perhaps there was also concern it would damage her brand.

sbm12

I've got a trip report from last March I still need to write. And some older ones which will probably never see the light of day. I get busy sometimes and trip reports are almost never time-sensitive. The only exception I can think of is "special" flights like inaugurals or farewell flights. I try to publish those same day. My story for the final KLM MD-11 flight was published while we were still taxiing in to the gate after landing.

n.b. The link above is to my blog or to one which I am a regular contributor. FT rules require that I disclose that in the post.

cruisr

Concur 100%. Seth's blog has led me to explore places I may not have had on my travel radar and for that I am very grateful.

dhammer53

It was his photos of the Northern Lights several years ago that hooked me. Perhaps a link.

24.05.2004

I scan VFTW, OMaaT daily and some others occasionally but Seth's is the only one I actually READ on a daily basis. He's some kind of AvGeek/Number-crunching-wonk extraordinaire!

Come on sbm12, take a bow!