Freakonomics

six if one went to Harvard.[sic]

-Edgar R. Fiedler

I went into work a few days ago and told several co-workers that I was looking for some sort of text to analyze and the general response was "What do you like?" I thought about it and realized that I should analyze something that I know absolutely nothing about. One of my co-workers was showing me something on a blog called "Freakonomics" and it occurred to me that I know nothing about economics. I went straight home and looked up the blog. I am hoping that because I do not know a lot about economics it will give me a somewhat, less bias outlook and enable me to better analyze the blog. It became obvious to me early on, that I was not the intended audience for information contained within the blog; therefore, I consider this not only an analysis of this blog but also sort of a social experiment. I think the analysis is important but I also recognized what happens when the "non-intended audience" gets a hold of the media and attempts to make sense out of the whole thing.

First, I must mention that the New York Times owns the Blog. The layout is particularly interesting. The words "The New York Times" is printed in a really small typeset with the colossal words "The Opinion post" directly underneath. Yet, the New York Times logo is what I noticed first. I think this is because The New York Times has their own particular font that is unmistakable from any others. The Times logo can be spotted across a room and therefore it is not necessary for the publisher to make it giant in order for the readers to know that this particular blog is connected to a major newspaper. The blog itself is entitled Freakonomics and directly below the title it says "The hidden side of everything." And I am not entirely certain what that means. Maybe that is something I would understand had I studied economics instead of English. I am assuming that "The hidden side of everything" is the catchphrase for the blog and I am also guessing that for someone to use a catchphrase, especially in a major publication, it must be directly related to the topic, in this case it is economics. Therefore, the significance of the phrase "The hidden side of everything" is beyond my grasp and I can deduce that this blog is intended for a very specific audience.

The entire blog seems to cater to people that have money and want more. The topics within the blog itself seem varied. Some people are blogging about success and how to achieve it. A man by the name of Fred Shapiro, posts an interesting "invitation." He wanted everyone to know that he had a book called The Yale Book of Quotations and if anyone wanted to know where certain quotes came from they could ask him and he would tell them. The individuals that "took him up" on his offer all had quotes that were directly related to business success. I was hoping to see something from Robert Frost or Hemmingway but instead they are quotes from business tycoons. There was quote that someone claimed to be from Shakespeare but I think they are incorrect, I noticed that some of the bloggers were also saying it was incorrect. The one thing that became obvious to me is that... I am not the intended audience.

It is obvious that the purpose of the blog is to make money for The New York Times. Although it appears that the main purpose of the blog is to allow people to talk all about economics. When I look off to the right side of the screen, there is a great big advertisement. There is a picture of a red cube that is made of glass, or maybe it is porcelain. On the side, there is a crossword puzzle; this is something that I recognize. I know that The New York Times is known for its crossword puzzles, among many other things. This cube is for sale at The New York Times Store and upon closer examination I realized that it is a cookie jar. This type of advertising seems to serve multiple purposes. First, even those that know nothing about economics probably know about The New York Times. Second, if you have heard of the paper you probably know about the crossword puzzles. This builds a commonality between the reader and the blog and to the New York Times web site as well. This was the only object on the page that I could relate to; it is sad when you are visiting an economics website and the only thing you can relate to is a crossword puzzle cookie jar.

The interesting thing here is that this website seems to have spawned off a book of the same name. It also seems that there is a radio station, a movie and a few other books all with the same title. There is a huge following in all the media sources relating to Freakonomics. From just looking at the website, I can tell that Freakonomics is a fun and "lighter" way to look at the field of economics. Economics, to me is an extremely dull and boring field; this blog is attempting to make it not so dull and boring. Although, the topics listed on the blogs seem boring to me. Once again, I do not think I am the audience they are after.

The target audience is not hard to pick out based on the comments that the bloggers left. They are either talking about staying rich or about getting rich. The conversations are about things like "markets" and bonds and even recycling if it pertains to making money. Yet, I did not sense that the people that were blogging were greedy, I did sense that they work extremely hard or used to work extremely hard, and now they just want to keep what they have. Looking at the pictures of the bloggers I would say that a good majority of them are in their early sixties and probably retired or about to be retired. Because the blog is actually contained within, the Times' web site it is still very easy to click on one of the other headings along the top of the screen. So, if you are not the target audience just click on a title of something that interests you. That brings me to my next point... this is not a web site you would just stumble upon. This website is something you would have to go looking for. It works out nicely for the Times because their target audience is actually going to find them.

Another thing I noticed is that the writers are inserting photos in with their comments and opinions. These pictures are of things like the stockbrokers on the floor on Wall Street, trading stocks. There are photos of book covers and even sports related items. It should also be noted that it seems that the biggest bloggers are actually the two authors of the book freakonomics; Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. The reason that I am able to easily recognize them as the authors of the book is mostly because it is mentioned in what appears to be an advertisement, to the right of the blog. There are other items in this particular location. We get a list of other blogs, all organized by categories. Also listed are the writers for the blog. There appears to be 10 of them; however there are many others that post on the blog. This brings me back to the person I spoke of earlier, Fred Shapiro. Fred is actually one of the writers for the blog; the thing I cannot figure out is... what is the big deal about his magic book The Yale Book of Quotations?

The final thing I noticed was that as you scroll down the page the advertisements on the right disappear about half way down. This is nice because the "distractions" off to the side really take away from the actual reading of the blog, which is what this blog was intended for. Or was it? I am uncertain myself. On one hand I can see legitimate communication going on between the 10 assigned bloggers and the rest of the public (I guess they are also bloggers) on the other hand the fact that this is owned by a major publisher, The New York Times makes me think otherwise.

This still raises a whole other question...How does the New York Times make money off this blog? In order to answer this I researched some websites and came to a web site written by; Steve Pavlina, who claims to know how to make money off blogs. The reason this blog makes money is simply because the Times is so renowned that anything they endorse would make money. However, I wanted to examine this on a more rudimentary level. According to Pavlina's website, the main thing a blog needs to make money is advertisers. In order to get the advertisers one needs to have a great programming team and website design experts. That is just the beginning. In fact, the web site even goes as far to tell us that the average person will not make money on their blog. It also got into more specifics and could be used as a sort of "how to" guide for blogs. It was also important for the author to mention that it is not cheap to accomplish this. That explains why the blog, Freakonomics is "piggybacking" the New York Times. The Times will boost the sales of the book and the book will probably lead people to the Times' website. It is a somewhat symbiotic relationship.

I know that newspapers are struggling, they need to do whatever they can to stay ahead of the game, and they need to turn a profit as well. I cannot see that the overall purpose for having this blog on their website is for anything other than to make money. There is nothing immoral about wanting to make money and providing a service for a limited audience at the same time. They have been in the publishing business for years and I am sure that they knew what they were doing when they designed this web site. I can pretty much guarantee that they have a team of experts in all areas of publishing. It also goes to say that they must have had something to gain by having this blog on their website. And, of course any writer would love to be connected to the New York Times. Whether it is through an article or a blog, The Times has the ability to boost any writer's career in to stardom and it goes without saying that the Times could destroy a career as well. Finally, as I attempted to bookmark the site on my computer the website made me subscribe to a "live feed" now I will always be up to date on freakonomics. Brilliant!

Bibliography

Opinion - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. .

The New York Times." The New York Times" Web. 27 Jan. 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html

Levitt, Steven D. ., and Stephen J. . Dubner. Freakonomics. London: Penguin, 2006. Print.

"How to Make Money From Your Blog." Personal Development for Smart People - Steve Pavlina. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. .

Famous Quotes | Sayings and Quotes by Famous People. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. .

"Ask Five Economists and You'll... at BrainyQuote." Famous Quotes at BrainyQuote. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. .