What do users really want? It's a question that publishers ask themselves all the time. We look at the comments our articles receive. We review our stats. We check the popularity of keywords. We ask for ideas on Twitter. And we do all sorts of other things that try to second-guess what's going through our users' minds so that we can deliver content that interests them most. But maybe we're asking the wrong question. Continue Reading

A few weeks ago when iFart was at the height of its popularity, I was contacted by Rob Walker. Rob writes the Consumed article for the New York Times Magazine, published every Sunday. He thought that the success of iFart was an interesting barometer of American pop culture and asked if I would do an interview. Of course, I was delighted to provide whatever information he wanted. The article was just published in today's edition! Continue Reading

Building a successful website doesn’t happen overnight. You have to create the pages, write the content, optimize your ads, drive traffic. You can be up and running within minutes but to earn the sort of revenues that make the whole thing worthwhile (and more) you’re going to have to invest time. And much of that time is going to be spent troubleshooting. A poorly-designed, badly-optimized site might make a little bit of money. A site... Continue Reading