Apple’s design secrets

I’m reading the Steve Job biography at the moment. It’s so gripping! Here are some highlights about design. First Jony Ive, Much of the design process is a conversation… There are no formal design reviews, so there are no huge decision points. Instead, we can make the decisions fluid. Since we iterate every day and…… Continue reading Apple’s design secrets

Product Insights: Beyond Stats

I just stumbled across an old project idea while clearing out my GitHub profile. If there is one thing that will make your business stronger, it’s understanding your users better. There are lots of analytics tools which help with this, but they suffer from two big problems. People hate stats. People want stories, not stats. Stats…… Continue reading Product Insights: Beyond Stats

News algorithms and how stories age

News is about what’s current, but different stories age at different rates. Some stories are relevant for weeks (such as Metro’s Ebola facts article). Some breaking stories are old within hours. At Metro we’ve been automating how stories drop down the page. Currently, there’s a “one site fits all” approach. It’s good, but it could…… Continue reading News algorithms and how stories age

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Categorized as Product

The secret sauce of the world’s biggest news site

The most popular news site in the world is MailOnline. The newspaper behind it, Daily Mail, is the most popular newspaper in the UK. I have a theory about what their secret sauce is. In 2008, neuro-psychologist David Rock published a model called SCARF. It describes 5 common ways to hack people’s motivation circuitry. It’s…… Continue reading The secret sauce of the world’s biggest news site

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Categorized as News, Product

5 ways to improve your news site: tips from BuzzFeed, Upworthy and Huff Post

Upworthy “The right sidebar, paired with a minimal design, increased social shares by 28%.” (source) “when we added distractions, user sharing went down” (source) BuzzFeed “People got used to this idea that you had to dumb down content to be popular. In fact you’re more likely to spread smart content” (source) Huff Post Huff Post…… Continue reading 5 ways to improve your news site: tips from BuzzFeed, Upworthy and Huff Post

5 reasons why Metro.co.uk is the best news site… in the world!

1. It made Hoque cry with laughter  << Hoque, before he watched this >> Dad on school run can’t help laughing at pupil’s slipping on ice   2. There’s always something surprising worth talking about The homeless woman who hid in a man’s closet for a year   3. It’s entertaining… it even makes the budget…… Continue reading 5 reasons why Metro.co.uk is the best news site… in the world!

How to rebrand content sites

Rebranding often goes hand in hand with a change in business strategy or content strategy. As my previous post discussed, big changes are risky. Incremental changes lets you validate you’re on the right track. Fortunately for content sites, content is relatively easy to experiment with. You can try out a new strategy on a small scale. We’ve…… Continue reading How to rebrand content sites