During my semester in DC, I took a journalism class. The instructor had a really strange set of professional experiences before becoming a teacher, including a stint with the USA T(otal crap)oday sports section, an unspecified something that led to a close personal friendship with the America's Most Wanted guy, and co-editorship of the AOL welcome screen. She told us that editing the welcome screen was the pinnacle of her journalism career, because it's one of the most-read news sources anywhere. Serious thought goes into selecting headlines that will be irresistible to AOLers--and make them click for more.
Yahoo! Mail has a similar screen full of headlines--most of them leading to trite and annoying stories. And yet I still get suckered in to clicking, even as I'm thinking "no, no, resist, resist!" I hate to let the welcome screen people win, but I did find these two recent stories pretty interesting:
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3 comments:
I am always lured in by the yahoo headlines. I am also always embarrassed at how easily I am lured in.
Oh yeah. It's where I get pretty much all my news. That and www.people.com. Which is not saying much.
maybe I don't have the right email address. That would make you (almost) forgiven.
Reunion soon. :)
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