Live blog: Cancellara v Gaimon; Strava stats reveal what athletes are eating and drinking; Movistar rider Jaime Rosón is suspended pending investigation into adverse biological passport finding + more

peted76 wrote:

Nonsense - regarding the Mottram headline, it's not clickbait it's simple reporting. 

Mottram himself said that statement himself to be 'inflammatory' so to the trolls above, go and piss over his chips, or Matt Barbet's who published the interview, you're not forced to read the site.  

Who the fuck are you calling a troll? I'm pointing out that something has been taken out of context. Or do you not understand that? If he'd said that to be inflammatory,  trust me - Rapha have an army of publicists who'd do a  much better job of using it - it would probably end up in a marketing brochure. There's a big difference between pointing something out, and someone who is 'trolling' (eg: deliberately winding people up to get a reaction). And yes, I am aware that I have fallen spectactularly into that trap here...

I understand the need to drive revenue through clicks. Editorial content needs to be paid for somehow (hence the seemignly endless videos of people being close passed, with attendant wittering in the comments and (true) trolling. However - there is a huge amount of value to be gained in treading that line between compelling content and commercial/'sucker' content. I'm merely pointing out that this fails to tread that line

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

Almost Daily Mail esque in creating a clickbaitable headline from something by lack of context.

Guess what guys? This is a business. How much do you pay to read this site? I thought so.

Give them a break.

simonmb wrote:

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

Almost Daily Mail esque in creating a clickbaitable headline from something by lack of context.

Guess what guys? This is a business. How much do you pay to read this site? I thought so.

Give them a break.

Time is money. I lost £0.27 reading this site today.

Zebulebu wrote:

Extremely misleading headline on the Mottram story. Reading the copy it's clear how out of context that headline is - making him out to be cycling's equivalent of Gerald Ratner. This site is getting more clickbaity by the day

It's been like this for many many years. 

crap laggy comments double post

Zebulebu wrote:

Extremely misleading headline on the Mottram story. Reading the copy it's clear how out of context that headline is - making him out to be cycling's equivalent of Gerald Ratner. This site is getting more clickbaity by the day

That's the inevitable consequence of a business model which depends on advertising - to pay the team & cover the costs, they've got to have revenue. One way of getting revenue is selling advertising. To sell advertising space, you've got to have visitors. Too attract visitors, you've got to have clickable headlines.

Building up a loyal, regular, valuable readership based on high quality content alone without clickbait headlines takes a very long time, and may not even be a sustainable model nowadays.

I'd agree that there are many clickbait headlines here, more than there used to be. But we're still voting to support them with our mouse clicks, so they're doing something right.

Don't like it? Click elsewhere.