I use to read Mashable all the time. It was like Social Media Religion to read that site. I looked up to Pete Cashmore and all his style. Slowly though that has been drifting away as the years pass by. They are becoming bigger and I’m becoming wiser.
Mashable does still create content worth reading and I still recommend it, but I don’t find myself reading the site much anymore. I’m fairly certain it is purely because of all the chaos that is also happening on the site at the same time. Today for example I landed on the site to read an article on some of the influential Social Media Marketers in the industry today, but I couldn’t unless I scrolled below the fold. I find this unacceptable, personally.
As you can see from the photo above, none of the articles actual content is showing. The only reason I know I’m on the right page is because thankfully the title is there. There are Google Ads stuffed into every cranny of the site and what isn’t a Google Ad is most likely Mashable promoting other stories on their site. I find this funny, because wouldn’t they want me to read the article and then navigate to another.
Maybe it is because they are becoming more corporate and need the ad money or maybe they think I’m smart enough to scroll down. Another possibility is, maybe they think anyone that would write about it reads Mashable from a Feed Reader and doesn’t have this problem, only less smart people actually go to the site and therefore don’t know the difference.
I’m not intentionally trying to rip into Mashable just trying to point out some basic blogging practices people drove into my head. Then again I could be totally wrong, and Mashable in the right and making the millions because of it. What do you think?
