Is Daily Mail 'flame-bait' the secret of its online success?

Did you see this story from the Daily Mail towards the end of last week?

Of course, Daily Mail pieces bemoaning change and technology are nothing new but the tone appears to be getting discernibly more insulting, more personal, in recent weeks. Previously we've seen pieces about Facebook causing cancer, for example, but now the headlines are more aggressively mocking, insulting the consumers (who may have delighted in its own very public LOL-fest earlier this year) rather than attempting merely to undermine the technology they use. You'll remember this from earlier in the summer where the headline follows a similar format:
 

An interesting point to note is that both of the above articles received high numbers of reader comments; a key indication in terms of website 'stickiness' and returning traffic. Many were at odds with the central claims of the article but that's hardly surprising.  

What's more both stories got around three times the number posted on the story about Facebook giving people cancer (from February 2009) - arguably a more ridiculous story, equally open to criticism but lacking the tone of personal insult that readers may feel an even greater need to respond to. This seems to be the element of such stories that the Daily Mail is now refining. 

Of course the suspicion that the Daily Mail is deliberately courting outrage is nothing new but what we're really starting to see now are the numbers which support its approach.

Since the 21% hike in website traffic which followed the Twitterstorm over Jan Moir's comments last year about Stephen Gately it would be very difficult for any under-pressure editor - and surely there isn't any other kind nowadays - to ignore the sheer numbers of modern outrage and it seems this evolving tone from the Mail is little more than the paper's highly successful commercialisation of flame-bait.

The anti-paywall

You might argue a national newspaper should put its credibility ahead of such tactics. But the Mail has several million reasons not to care. The path it has chosen is proving very successful currently.

Last month the Daily Mail recorded 44.2 million unique users - putting it 10 million online readers ahead of nearest competitor The Guardian. Year-on-year the Mail has grown its online readership by a staggering 43% and the newspaper of middle England now draws two-thirds of its online readership from overseas.

There is a lot more to the Mail's success of course than baiting angry social networks and Apple fan-boys. There is actually a fine-tuned approach to SEO that belies the paper's Luddite stance. Not to mention the courting of those looking for candid upskirt and down blouse photos and celebrity gossip.

But all such tactics are indicative of a paper which has very successfully acknowledged that its online readership can be entirely different from its traditional newspaper readership and it really doesn't seem to care 1) where that traffic comes from, 2) why they come, and 3) whether they hate the content when they get there... as long as they read it and post a few reader comments about it.

It could be said the Mail's philosophy is the anti-paywall, an open-house of cheap commodity, outrage, search-engine friendly keywords (how many 'Daily Mail readers' know who Kim Kardashian is?) and flame-bait directed very deliberately at communities of people who would never pay to read its content.

Comments

[James R Grinter]

Although many of us think of the Daily Fail's article comments and forum citizens as part of a stereotype, I've had a number of conversations with people who claim that they deliberately add these controversial comments and they don't really hold those views. So it is quite possible that its online readership is one gigantic horde of flame-baiting trolls too.

[Stephen Rice]

@James R Grinter

At what point are we going to hit a critical mass of cynical flame baiting and the site becomes self aware?

[Richard.Heade]

Of course, the other thing is, that you need to open an account at the DM to post anything on any thread and I assume that as soon as you inform them of your e-mail address it is sold to advertisers and online marketing businesses accordingly. A nice little earner for the DM, therefore, the more prolifically abhorent their headlines the more folks who want to join up to comment, it's like taking candy off a baby.