January 17, 2014

"The New York Times' Most Popular Story of 2013 Was Not an Article."

"A news app, a piece of software about the news made by in-house developers, generated more clicks than any article."
And it did this in a tiny amount of time: The app only came out on December 21, 2013. That means that in the 11 days it was online in 2013, it generated more visits than any other piece.

8 comments:

rehajm said...

I did not realize those interactive news features embedded into an article or as a stand alone feature on a webpage were referred to as 'apps'.

Amusing it took a third party to develop the feature into a real phone app. The Gray Lady Dinosaur loses again!

Mary Beth said...

The dialect map was uncannily accurate at figuring out where you were from. So much so I thought it might be cheating and looking at the quiz taker's ISP to determine location but other people said it placed them in the city in which they grew up but where they no longer lived.

David said...

This is the opposite of surprising. A news story has a one day lifespan, editorials and op-eds a day or two, and those tend to appeal to relatively small subsets of all NYT readers. The app has a much longer lifespan and should appeal to a much larger subset of readers.

Wince said...

Wow. Boston/Worcester/Providence.

Nailed on usage, not pronunciation, as I've really lost most of my Boston accent despite living here all my life. (But I still understand Bostonese, when I inexplicably hear the "Rs" that should be but aren't there in conversation.)

"Bubbler" and "rotary" betrayed my origins.

The bubbler also highlighted on he map... Wisconsin.

Wicked pissa!

MDIJim said...

Nailed both my home town, Bahston, and where I now live, Meene.

The Cardinals picked Broglio. What position does he play?

Wince said...

"Did you ever hear a Boston girl have an orgasm?"

Paddy O said...

The dialect map doesn't work as well with me. Modesto, Spokane, Salt Lake City were the three cities. So, "vaguely western."

Meanwhile, my family has been in Southern California for 5 generations. Indeed, a lot of the words they chose definitely betrayed an east coast bias. There's differences between me (SoCal) and my wife (Portland, OR) but nothing came near to bringing that out. Plus, there were a lot of stuff we just don't have. Roundabouts, sun showers, fireflies, crayfish. I learn those words from television. The first two might be needed very occasionally hereabouts, but rarely. So, my word choice reflects my reading and tv.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

NYT should become Buzzfeed.