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Popular Metafiction vs. Science Fiction, Revisited for 2008

Last year, I compared the web traffic and related sites for BoingBoing and science fiction publications. Not surprisingly, science fiction magazines like Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF trailed BoingBoing in terms of overall traffic. But even more interesting were the stats on what Alexa calls “related sites.” Related sites are sites that are also popular with the people visiting the site under analysis.

In light of the emergence of the i09 blog, I decided to rerun the Alexa stats this year and see where we are. i09 occupies a space similar to BoingBoing–a space I call “popular metascience.” For the old farts here, think Omni for the 00s, minus the fiction. i09 has a more specific focus on science fiction, which for them translates to more scifi movie reporting, more scifi ephemera, and more general scifi links than BoingBoing.

The results are interesting. First off, let’s take a look at the chart. Yeah, popular metascience still kills science fiction. But again, the related sites make it interesting. Consider the related sites for each of these presences:

BoingBoing

i09

Analog

Strange Horizons

Once again, there’s no overlap. What’s interesting, to me, are two things.

One: I wonder who the visitors to i09 really are. Or if they are. They certainly don’t show much interest in science fiction, nor do they show much interest in other Gawker blogs. The numbers may look very impressive (they started up officially in January 08), but the related sites are truly a grab-bag of unrelated stuff.

Edit: Charlie Jane Anders explains io9’s bizarre results in comments. Apparently the domain was a linkfarm for many years. It’ll be interesting to see what the traffic looks like in a few months.

Two: From the amount of related magazines, online pubs, review sites, and market sites like Ralans, it is increasingly evident who the primary audience for short SF is today: other writers. This is true for both Analog and Strange Horizons.

So why did I do this, you ask? Well, it’s partially just native curiosity. I find sites like BoingBoing and i09 interesting–and I am also a science fiction reader and writer. So I want to know what popular sites are doing, and how that can be applied to science fiction in general.

It’s also partially because I really want to help. I’d like to see the science fiction magazines succeed. I’d like to see science fiction become more relevant. I’d like to see it come back to genre that is actively leading us forward, instead of telling us “there’s no use, we’re all going to die anyway.” Unfortunately, there’s little I can do to help the publications directly, so maybe this, in some small manner, will help point the way.

After all, BoingBoing grew organically. It didn’t take millions of dollars in advertising or the combined might of a television network to launch. It occupies a space where science fiction could be.

i09 is different, being part of the massive Gawker blog network. But, as such, it sends its own powerful message: these new media conglomerates are eying our space with intellects “vast and cool and dispassionate,” to paraphrase. And they’re moving in. What does that mean for the future?

April 4th, 2008 /



9 Responses to “Popular Metafiction vs. Science Fiction, Revisited for 2008”

  1. Paul Raven Says:
    April 5th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    io9’s visitors are organic search clicks and “hey, check this out” links; that’s what Gawker has always aimed for, and despite the occasional attempt at doing otherwise, the staff have noticed already that constantly writing lists about TV sf franchises and throwing the lit fans a controversial bone once a fortnight is enough to get the CPM numbers sorted and pay their wages.

    I hate writing about io9, because I know I sound bitter; I know in truth I’m not. Though they have maybe a post a day that I actually care about, I’m not sure I could be paid enough to grind out the facile OMG that passes for average content there without choking on my own paycheck.

    It breaks my heart. Futurismic can’t even afford to pay its essayists and bloggers, let alone pay pro rates for fiction, but “Top 10 triple-titted aliens OMG!!1!1″ is all it takes to rake in the search traffic and pay pro journalists to write what is, largely, shite. Maybe I should take my principles round to the back of the barn with a shotgun.

    I’m sorry, I’ve had a bad week. But that only means I’ve said what I feel rather than putting a positive gloss on things. :(

  2. Jason Says:
    April 5th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    Paul, I hear you. But I’m a little less convinced that io9’s traffic is from organic search and random links. Especially when the top keywords (from compete.com) are, in order:

    1. wedgies from movies (WTF)
    2. sci fi robot art
    3. io9
    4. myspace valentines day surveys
    5. cache: joystiq.com

    It may just be that the site is still so new the stats haven’t settled (after all, both Alexa and Compete.com stats are approximations at best.) But, with the related sites being either dead/nonexistent sites or unrelated-to-SF sites, something seems a little off.

  3. Links for 06-04-2008 | Velcro City Tourist Board Says:
    April 5th, 2008 at 7:30 pm

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  4. Jonathan M Says:
    April 6th, 2008 at 12:30 am

    …and the audience for review sites appears to be reviewers :-)

    Great piece Jason and I must say that I echo Paul’s feelings on the io9 question. I feel slightly grubby if I happen to surf over there by accident. I remember when I was still writing for SFDiplomat I considered one of those “10 best SF films” lists and then realised that life is too short for writing uninteresting bollocks.

    The SFF blog market is completely fractured anyway, I don’t think many of the people reading Pat’s fantasy site were reading SFDiplomat and I know that I don’t read any fantasy-angled blogs.

    I think io9 is based on the idea that has been used so successfully in mags like SFX; most people are interested in SFF films and hardly any people are interested in SFF books.

  5. Charlie Jane Anders Says:
    April 6th, 2008 at 10:34 am

    Hey Jason, thanks for writing about io9. I think we’re too new for the “related sites” and keywords stats to be useful. We actually just launched in January, not December. All of the “related sites” for io9, according to Alexa, seem to be link farms and spam sites. Bear in mind that we bought the domain name io9.com after it had been a link farm for years. So chances are that Alexa is still relying on data from when io9.com was getting the same visitors as spam sites.

    I haven’t looked at Asimovs and Analog lately, but last time I did, they didn’t publish much of their fiction online. So there’s not that much reason to visit their sites. I have to say, the last time I had a story in StrangeHorizons, I was struck by how many random comments I got about it from strangers and people I hadn’t heard from in ages. SH does seem to have a pretty decent sized cadre of readers. But it’s a widely held opinion, at least in the literary magazine world, that the main readership for short fiction is other writers.

    As for our book coverage, we aim to have one or two book-related posts per day, which is about the same as boingboing, I guess. I just got done being on the Tiptree jury, so I’ll have more time to read pure SF books and review them on the site. Thanks again for writing about our blog. We love your writing!

    Best,
    Charlie Jane w/ io9

  6. Jason Says:
    April 6th, 2008 at 11:18 am

    io9 being a link farm for many years would definitely help explain the bizarre results.

    Again, I cannot emphasize too strongly that the results from both Alexa and Compete are *approximations.* They’re useful for checking the relative volume of traffic, basic engagement, and keywords, but they are not like, for example, subscribing to Hitwise.

    And yeah, I wouldn’t expect much traffic to Analog, Asimovs, or F&SF–for both the reason you pointed out (little or no fiction), and for two other reasons: poor organization and little or no related content of interest. Whatever people’s personal opinions on io9, the content is updated *very frequently,* and the site serves as much more than a billboard for a print publication.

    What *is* interesting, as I dig a little deeper, are the Alexa stats comparing Strange Horizons to Baen’s Universe, IGMS, and Futurismic (all sites which publish fiction). Strange Horizons is, by far, the gorilla in the room. They have enough traffic to begin thinking about monetization.

    But, in general, I think that the more action on the SF front, the better! I think both the SF and popular metafiction sites are valuable. Many people forget that some of the most important science fiction stories of the 80s were published in Omni, a magazine that floated largely in the popular metafiction space.

    Now, if we could get io9 or BoingBoing to do fiction . . .

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