READ THIS Dallas Morning News (DMN) has demanded we no longer allow their content posted on CZ

[dallasdave]

Hey, that's only about 15 miles from my house! The La Brea Tar Pits! Took my boy there a couple years ago! I was more interested in it than he was

Yeah that would be something to see

 

[dallasdave]

 

[DFWJC]

If I recall, I think they boiled over in the movie "Volcano"

 

[Trouty]

Yeah that would be something to see

It's rad, Dave!! Lots of fossils on display!!! They're still finding stuff in those pits

 

[dallasdave]

Too many BEANS

 

[Trouty]

Too many BEANS

Lmao!!!!!!

 

[Idgit]

Per Quantcast, the DMN is the 815th most trafficked site in the country with 2,163,338 "people in the United States who visit each site within a month."

https://www.quantcast.com/top-sites/US?jump-to=815

CZ.com is ranked 82,338th with 23,171 visitors per month. Even if all zoners would stop going to the DMN, the DMN wouldn't even notice the 1% reduction in traffic.

For reference, here are a few other local sites with Cowboys content:

No. 556: nbcdfw.com. 3,124,500 visitors/month
No. 826: star-telegram.com. 2,126,462 visitors/month
No. 2,092: bloggingtheboys.com. 914,980 visitors/month
No. 2,953: dallascowboys.com. 638,091 visitors/month
No. 17,424: expressnews.com. 106,185 visitors/month
No. 72,301: insidethestar.com. 26,308 visitors/month
No. 77,831: 5pointsblue.com. 24,486 visitors/month
No. 324,199: cowboyszone.com. 6,163 visitors/month

Note that Quantcast tracks unique visits, and that they have to estimate when they don't have pixels placed, which they probably don't in this case.

DMN traffic, if you're looking at the impact, you should probably look just at their sports traffic, or at their football traffic. That'd be a different story. Overall, though ~15% of their traffic does come from referrers/links. It's not the end of the world to lose forum referrers, but it's still a lot of traffic, and it's about as highly-targeted as you can get for the content they've got. Cutting it off and then trying to spend money to replace it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Nobody's paying for their subscription content, anyway. This will all be moot in a few years.

 

[waldoputty]

Totally Bearish

 

[tyke1doe]

i highly doubt their attorney wrote a cease and desist letter without DMN approval.
furthermore, almost any lawyer would suggest to work things out amicably before even a nasty-gram.

Oh, I believe this was done with DMN's approval.
This is low-hanging fruit, though. This forum doesn't have the resources to challenge the C & D order. And if it's an issue to merely protect the intellectual property of the DMN, I don't see why the lawyers would encourage the paper to compromise on this issue. You don't compromise when all the chips are on your side.

 

[waldoputty]

Oh, I believe this was done with DMN's approval.
This is low-hanging fruit, though. This forum doesn't have the resources to challenge the C & D order. And if it's an issue to merely protect the intellectual property of the DMN, I don't see why the lawyers would encourage the paper to compromise on this issue. You don't compromise when all the chips are on your side.

every single lawyer i have had encourages working things out amicably.
and i have worked with more than 10 corporate lawyers.
in a case like this, it should not be zero-sum at all.
and they get a lot of benefit from CZ without any work or expense.
and they could have gotten a lot more.

 

[Reality]

CZ.com is ranked 82,338th with 23,171 visitors per month. Even if all zoners would stop going to the DMN, the DMN wouldn't even notice the 1% reduction in traffic.

Those numbers are WAY off We've topped 20k unique users (not visitors, but unique users) in a day many times.

QuantCast and other estimation/projection stat services are rarely accurate for any sites with less than several millions of users per month.

What you and DMN fail to understand is that we were sending hundreds of users to their site every day. I have logs that prove this. So, their content in a sense was like advertisements and their click-thru rate was quite high given the return. Even if you project a $0.50/cpc (which is very low given how targeted the traffic is for their content) you are talking thousands of dollars in free advertising per month they were receiving for free that they lost.

So sure, maybe those few hundred users we were sending to them each day won't mean much to them, but it was VERY targeted traffic.

Regardless, there will be no reversing this once I remove the remaining DMN content from the site.

 

[Trouty]

Those numbers are WAY off We've topped 20k unique users (not visitors, but unique users) in a day many times.

QuantCast and other estimation/projection stat services are rarely accurate for any sites with less than several millions of users per month.

What you and DMN fail to understand is that we were sending hundreds of users to their site every day. I have logs that prove this. So, their content in a sense was like advertisements and their click-thru rate was quite high given the return. Even if you project a $0.50/cpc (which is very low given how targeted the traffic is for their content) you are talking thousands of dollars in free advertising per month they were receiving for free that they lost.

So sure, maybe a few hundred users each day won't mean much to them, but it was VERY targeted traffic.

Regardless, there will be no reversing this once I remove the remaining DMN content from the site.

Is Alexa accurate, Reality?

And how the heck does BtB get that much more traffic?? Grrr!

 

[tyke1doe]

every single lawyer i have had encourages working things out amicably.
and i have worked with more than 10 corporate lawyers.
in a case like this, it should not be zero-sum at all.
and they get a lot of benefit from CZ without any work or expense.
and they could have gotten a lot more.

Well, by many poster's testimony, they don't read the DMN anyway. So how does the DMN exactly benefit?
And with all due respect to your experience with lawyers, this isn't a suit or a settlement, where there's more give and take.
I've worked with lawyers too. And if a case is to the client's advantage, lawyers don't tend to work things out amicably.

 

[Reality]

Is Alexa accurate, Reality?

And how the heck does BtB get that much more traffic?? Grrr!

None of those stat projection services are reliable except on sites that receive high traffic. I have access to Google Analytics (real traffic reports) for several high and medium traffic sites and have yet to find a single stat projection service that comes close to their actual traffic. Some of them even grossly over estimate their traffic.

 

[waldoputty]

Well, by many poster's testimony, they don't read the DMN anyway. So how does the DMN exactly benefit?
And with all due respect to your experience with lawyers, this isn't a suit or a settlement, where there's more give and take.
I've worked with lawyers too. And if a case is to the client's advantage, lawyers don't tend to work things out amicably.

DMN benefits from CZ linking to their articles.
I think most of us provide links and help drive readers to the original source, which is just civil respectful behavior.
ldigit just indicated about 15% of their views are from referrals.

I dont understand your exact circumstances.
It is a small industry.
You dont just try to crush someone when things could be worked out amicably.

In this case, it is just not zero-sum.
With a little work and imagination (not that much even), it could be mutually beneficial.

DMN's so called hard working writers are apparently not so hard-working or not so bright.
Instead of desperately trying to hold onto your piece of the pie, grow the pie.

Just look at what BTB does with its writers interacting with the readers.
It works well and generates lot of good-will and loyalty.
It does not have to be like this.

 

[dallasdave]

WOW

 

[GhostOfPelluer]

DMN benefits from CZ linking to their articles.
I think most of us provide links and help drive readers to the original source, which is just civil respectful behavior.
ldigit just indicated about 15% of their views are from referrals.

I dont understand your exact circumstances.
It is a small industry.
You dont just try to crush someone when things could be worked out amicably.

In this case, it is just not zero-sum.
With a little work and imagination (not that much even), it could be mutually beneficial.

DMN's so called hard working writers are apparently not so hard-working or not so bright.
Instead of desperately trying to hold onto your piece of the pie, grow the pie.

Just look at what BTB does with its writers interacting with the readers.
It works well and generates lot of good-will and loyalty.
It does not have to be like this.

I guarantee it's not the writers behind this. Belo is a huge company and this was made at least mid-management level and possibly corporate. The writers undoubtedly know the benefit they get from the links here and elsewhere.

 

[TheCount]

There's no cause of action here for DMN, and no precedent for even a remote argument.

Of course they do, they own their content.

 

[munkee]

So If I type "DMN is stupid and I won't go in their site any more", they will see it?

good times

Sure hope so.

 

[Frozen700]

**** them.