Ok, so you’re a new web news site, and you want to get eyeballs on your ads, right?
As a huge rss fan, I get that writers want to create interesting headlines. Not every story is a big deal, but it’s important to have a constant stream of stories, so you take what get. If you want your rss feed to lead to people reading the full (ad-supported) story, you have to catch their attention w/ a great headline, and possibly a meaningful summary.
I get it. Catch my attention.
Where do you draw the line, though? I’m ok w/ some abuse of the truthiness of a headline, but check out the screenshot I posted:
- “Apple cuts iPhone production”. My first thought was, “Huh. Is the iphone not doing as well as they’d like? How much did they cut it? Is it cut severely? What’s the cause of this? Is a new model coming?” Turns out, production was already due to be cut by 50% but was increased to 60%; first quarter cuts are common after the busy holiday quarter.
- “iPhone is getting fatter!”. “Is the new 16gb bigger?” No… it’s just the Joy of Tech cartoon.
*sigh*