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Someone please explain Bleacher Report to me
By Zach Arnold | February 12, 2009
If you’ve been a reader of Google News, you know that seemingly you cannot miss about 5 items from a site called Bleacher Report every time any news topic appears — especially sports. For the most part, the articles are downright embarrassing to read (in my opinion). I can’t avoid reading Google News, so I’m stuck with having to deal with the BR material there.
Then, I started working on a web project and was compiling RSS feeds for CBS Sports sections. It turns out, Bleacher Report links are all over their RSS feeds. It’s like the plague.
Now, today, I find Bleacher Report material invading the Fox Sports web site. Here’s a gem of an article, essentially suggesting that Dana White doesn’t get enough respect from MMA fans. Seriously. PPV buys are at a peak right now for company business. That’s the ultimate sign of respect from an American consumer — money being spent.
It is truly awful to have to continously read BR crap on Google News, CBS Sports RSS feeds, and now on Fox Sports. So this material is what dominates news sites in terms of # of links? What I wouldn’t give to see Google News index all of the MMA sites that are listed on the left sidebar of this page…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s a social journalism site, but highly lacking journalism. It’s like a social blogging platform. Anyone can write an article, any person wanting to take the time to write an article, and that’s the gist of the site.
Yeah Leland pretty much summed it up. It’s sort of a way for amateur sports journalists to get published. There used to be other sites like this such as Hot Stove Diner and Allsports.com but those seemed to have faded away.
The concept would work if there was a considerable amount of mainstream legitimate news sources on the main pages as well as fan journalism and if fan journals were indicated to be as such. Also including a rating system (which I don’t recall if BR has) to allow readers to vote up or down the credibility or quality of an article could be a way to keep the crappier articles off the main page.
You’re seeing it all over Google and such because they have done a great job with their SEO. Also the more interactive and inclusive they are, the larger their community is and the hits they draw are going to help search results.
I think the concept is a good one, it just needs to be tweaked a bit.
Rp
You might want to try Newsgator. Like Google, you can subscribe to feeds by keywords but I don’t find Bleacher Report comes up much.
The best part of Bleacher Report is that it concentrates people who post on Bleacher Report onto one stupid, ignorable site. Well, except for all the damn RSS shit.
What’s even better is this is the “#1 Writer” in the MMA section on BR.
http://bleacherreport.com/users/2088-Dorothy-Willis
Check out her profile and read a few of her articles. Truly atrocious
In regards to MMA websites, I think SEO is something that most of us were behind the curve on. (And some of us 🙂 are still catching up.)
It’s amazing the drivel that gathers so many hits and traffic just because of the SEO that goes into a site.
But really, that fault falls on us that run MMA sites for not being on top of the SEO game. But in our defense, most of us were grass roots entities, learning as we go.
Ken – MMAWeekly.com
Aww, Dr J be hating on old ladies… lol
That article about Dana White actually makes some good points. Its overblown and in some cases poorly considered but at its core, its RIGHT.
And Zach’s dismissal in his write-up is a bit silly. UFC customers don’t buy PPVs because of their respect for Dana White. They buy them because they want to see the fights. And even while that happens, there’s still a LOT of people who bitch and moan for often silly or misguided reasons.
Its hardly the most professional piece of journalism I’ve ever seen (and anyone looking for such things in MMA ‘journalism’ is instantly set up for disappointment) but I’ve seen FAR worse.
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