The Canary, views and discussion...

[krtek a houby]

'Other peoples content, turned into clickbait' doesn't sound quite so good tbf.

It works for Irish Central. Allegedly.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Similar Web (website traffic reporting site) has them pulling in 1 million viewers per month from November through to January, then a noticeable increase to 1.5 mill in Feb, over 3 mil in March, and just under in April. Almost all driven by social media.

Seems to fit in with the increase in articles shared on fb that I've noticed. Must be making a few quid. Those sort of numbers are similar to the (apparently very profitable) daily mash.

 

[smokedout]

Similar Web (website traffic reporting site) has them pulling in 1 million viewers per month from November through to January, then a noticeable increase to 1.5 mill in Feb, over 3 mil in March, and just under in April. Almost all driven by social media.

Almost all driven by facebook in fact. Astonishing results for a site with 11,000 twitter followers, 60,000 facebook likes and where most posts get less than 20 comments. Almost as if they are buying traffic off facebook.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Almost all driven by facebook in fact. Astonishing results for a site with 11,000 twitter followers, 60,000 facebook likes and where most posts get less than 20 comments. Almost as if they are buying traffic off facebook.

Yeah, interesting - given their (recent) numbers are similar to the daily mash (whose traffic is also largely social media driven), but the daily mash has about 6.5 x as many followers on FB. And is, along with vice, just about the most shared website in my feed.

Seems more than just the power of clickbait to me.

 

[killer b]

The daily mash has been going for years, don't think their followers on fb really work as a comparison.

 

[smokedout]

• 
  

  [*]First we pay tax. We are based in the UK and are happy to contribute our share to develop a wonderful country, not without its problems of course.
  [*]Then we pay costs. Nobody at The Canary is on payroll, the directors take nothing at this point so this is largely legal, accounting and hosting costs which we try to keep to 5% of our gross revenue.
  [*]What is left is our net profit. We split this simply.
  

  • 50% to our writers
  • 10% to our section editors
  • 40% on growth marketing

So nearly half the money is going on buying more traffic. And they pay tax before they take out costs? Fucking liars.

 

[butchersapron]

How do they pay tax first? Who does the writers tax?

 

[smokedout]

Maybe they mean they pay Kerry's tax

 

[killer b]

They'll be self employed.

I was looking at that page earlier - pretty fishy imo

 

[chilango]

...but it's shit.

I looked at home page and nothing made me want read any further.

 

[Mungy]

what are its views on coalmining?

I misread that as Godalming.

 

[teuchter]

I misread that as Godalming.

What are your views on Godalming?

 

[Jon-of-arc]

The daily mash has been going for years, don't think their followers on fb really work as a comparison.

I'm not suggesting they're exactly the same - they're not. But they are both UK websites with traffic driven by social media, who have had similar numbers of page views for the last few months. There are other similarities in terms of bounce rate, time spent on site, probably common to most websites that get their clicks from FB. As opposed to eg, urban75.net or the guardian.com, which have completely different patterns. I wondered how that had happened with such a small number of followers.

 

[killer b]

The daily mash has 6.5 times as many followers on fb, but has probably been going for at least 6.5 times as long - it's a lot more time to pick up followers is all.

 

[DaveCinzano]

they're getting a shitload of traffic from gullible middle class wet left arseholes - that's got to be a valuable market to sell to advertisers surely?

I would love to have been a fly-on-the-wall at that particular demographic analysis meeting

 

[DaveCinzano]

I misread that as Godalming.

The Shere unlikeliness!

 

[Rob Ray]

It sure is. Journalists are paid on a "per click" basis - 50/50 with the website.

What this essentially means is that they're not prepared to pay the journalists up front, cover any normal employment costs etc while building their site, instead lumping the responsibility for success on the writers while retaining control over all the assets. By "they" I mean Mendoza and her silent partner Tony 'Roja' Buck, a former Just Eat Head of Technology who seems to have put up the technical and financial side of things, and owns the other 50% of the company (funnily enough the staff aren't getting any stock). I assume he's the unnamed Managing Director. The key line here is:

The Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief won’t take a share of profit until the site is earning enough through advertising, sponsorship, and affiliate marketing to redistribute some of the marketing budget.

So they'll get the affiliate marketing, sponsorship, adverts and later on renegotiate whatever else they feel is "reasonable" if the site takes off. They of course have full control over that 50/50 "split" (whatever that actually amounts to).

Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole personally, seem like a couple of chancers aiming to corner the slightly-hysterical-social-democrat market to the left of Huffpo by offering saps a "partnership" model that'll be anything but. But then I'm a cynic about this stuff, when I see "innovative business model" I translate it to "variation on the same old scam."

 

[DaveCinzano]

I assume he's the unnamed Managing Director.

Aye

CANARY MEDIA LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House)

 

[steeplejack]

Thee's a pretty damning write up in this week's Private Eye ...describing the Canary as "a pisspoor Corbynist clickbait website" only promoted by "HackedOff" as it is one of a handful of media titles to have siogned up to its Max Mosley-funded alternative press regulator called "Impress".

The Canary is total shit.

 

[kingfisher]

i may be pilloried for this, but kam is a spook, isnt she, i know one of the fellas that writes stuff for this wants to push the envelope sliughtly (chris court dobson, treeman) - co defendent of mine, but at the end of the day its all bollocks isnt it, yeah id love to have a chat about what occupy was, who was at the meeting "that provided the seeds of occupy wallstreet" that mark kennedy attended. the simple facts are that 9/11 was an inside job, and these people, they are too entrenched and powerful.
i know about this stuff. all journos are spooks really arent tyhey>? -
i have all the occupy intranet emails - (anyone else got access ) and i cant remember who was specifically pushing KaM as some new voice but... it was someone dodgy, but, publishing run by spooks isnt it -
the man on the clapham omnivus knows 9/11 was an inside job....

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Nothing that you said up until this...

the simple facts are that 9/11 was an inside job.

has any bearing or relation to the statement whatsoever. And yeah, you will get pilloried for talking bollocks like that.

 

[killer b]

go away you bellend.

 

[kingfisher]

go away you bellend.

, talking about poitcs without the "deep" aspect. v4ry odd, arms tied behind your back, or is it a gun to your head.
the post-occupy protest landscape , online, offline, print, street -
one of the defining roles is the anti-conspiracy current.
where should i go?
killer b - are you a killer? are you a drug dealer saying you have exceptionally strong brown.
for the future history,

 

[editor]

the man on the clapham omnivus knows 9/11 was an inside job....

Only if that man is stupid and gullible enough to read the utter drivel spewed up all over the internet by conspiraspudheads.

 

[kingfisher]

Only if that man is stupid and gullible enough to read the utter drivel spewed up all over the internet by conspiraspudheads.

kerry ann mendoza works for military intelligence five

 

[butchersapron]

kerry ann mendoza works for military intelligence five

After this persons anti-semitism last burst, let's get rid.

 

[editor]

kerry ann mendoza works for military intelligence five

Does she get the Clapham omnibus?

 

[killer b]

After this persons anti-semitism last burst, let's get rid.

Can we? editor?

 

[kingfisher]

why

 

[J Ed]

Interesting that the person who runs The Canary is a conspiray theorist. There seems to be an undercurrent of conspiratorial ideology that isn't immediately obvious with the left liberal bits of facebook, one thing that disturbs me quite a bit is just how often and how many people link to the 'Jihadi John's Day Off' page. The page links to any old shit including weird US economic crank stuff but it is run by (and you can guess from the name) people who believe that terrorist attacks are staged and include 'crisis actors'.