Mashable

The Site 

Mashable is a news outlet for the digital world.

The Primary Purpose

Originally, the site focused on social media and organically expanded to include digital trends, technology, business and innovation. With growing popularity, Mashable has expanded news coverage to include world news, entertainment, business and even politics. From cat videos to election coverage, Mashable integrates the entertaining with the important. With a Google pagerank of 8 and an Alexa score of 226 (135 in the US), the content is working. According to the about page, Mashable reaches 20 million unique visitors per month. And the empire doesn’t stop at just the website: Mashable social outlets have over 6 million followers and a Mashable article is shared every second on a social media platform. Mashable has received numerous accolades including being named one of the top 25 blogs by TIME Magazine in 2009.

The Mission:

“To be the Connected Generation’s source for news, utility, inspiration and entertainment.”

The Audience Profile

According to VentureBeat, Mashable audience members are composed of “tech-savvy early adopters, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, influencers, Web 2.0 aficionados and technology journalists.” In the site’s marketing kit, Mashable identifies their target audience at the “Connect Generation” which is defined as :

Connected Generation n.
1 People who integrate innovation into all parts of their lives and are immersed in digital culture. 2 People who are constantly connected, communicating, consuming, and sharing content across multiple devices and platforms. 3 People who are community-oriented. 4 People who are brand evangelists/loyalists.

Over 50% of users age between 25 and 44 years old with 30% between 25 and 34. This means that most of Mashable’s readers could be considered Millennials. According to Pew Research, Millennials tend to be “confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and receptive to new ideas and ways of living.” In the Pew portrait of the Millennial generation, they are described as “history’s first “always connected” generation. Steeped in digital technology and social media, they treat  their multi-tasking hand-held gadgets almost like a body part – for better and worse. More than eight-in-ten say  they sleep with a cell phone glowing by the bed, poised to  disgorge texts, phone calls, emails, songs, news, videos, games and wake-up jingles.”

Alexa notes that Mashable skews towards the highly educated and lacks representation for those without a college degree. This corresponds with Pew’s research on Millennials who are on track to be the most educated generation ever. This also jives with Mashable’s claim of average house hold income of $76,818, more than three times the US poverty limit as more highly educated individuals tend to have higher incomes.

According to FindTheBest, Mashable readers are predominantly caucasian at about 73%. This is most likely due to the white male bias typically seen in the technology industry. According to Level Playing Field, only about 7% of tech jobs are held by African Americans and only about 5% by those of hispanic heritage.

Mashable is visited equally by both genders as reported in their marketing materials. This claim is supported by Alexa data and skews slightly male on FindTheBest.

The Frequency

Mashable publishes multiple times a day with up-to-date content. According to Moz.com, Mashable posts about 2000 pieces of content per month.

The Competition

Wired – According to the press kit, the site, a companion piece to the tradition print magazine, does cater to a similar audience but focuses more on business, entrepreneurship and technology with less emphasis on social media or entertainment. Additionally, the audience skews more male and is slightly older averaging at 36.

TechCrunch –  According to the About page, TechCrunch is a leading technology media property, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news.This site has a long standing competition with Mashable. However, TechCrunch skews male and does not deviate from tech and start up news.

Smashing Magazine – While sharing some overlap in terms of the latest technology and digital trends, Smashing Magazine caters specifically to designers and developers. The site gives advice, how to’s and trends without venturing much outside of the web design and build world.

Gizmodo – Their tagline “Tech By Design” is a solid representation of the site. It caters to the tech elite and designers. Many articles are gadget or software related.

DigitalTrends – While matching Mashable’s focus on trends in the digital space, this site is more tech and product focused. It rarely ventured outside of the tech reporting realm into world news or entertainment.

VentureBeat – Focused on entrepreneurship, VentureBeat talks tech, people and money. The site does not integrate entertainment and focuses more on business problems and solutions.

ReadWrite – ReadWrite integrates social, tech, entertainment, popular memes and digital trends. It skews more male and older than Mashable according to FindTheBest.

The Style Issues

Mashable does not have its own published style guide. However, the content and topics are so new and terms are often newly created that APA and MLA, with their slow to change attitudes, would not seem to fit the bill. For this reason, I will use the Wired Style for formatting. As a main competitor of Mashable, the content is similar and it will address more current issues of language in the digital landscape.

The Information Challenge

Mashable readers are typically tech-industry Millennials with one eye out for professional development content and the other for their next Facebook post. This means Mashable must (and does) do a good job balancing between the fun and the hard hitting. Additionally, according to FindTheBest, most users are accessing at work. This means content should be clean (no NSFW without a warning), scannable and sharable. According to a recent informal content analysis, 13% of content posted is in the form of a list. As these are tech savvy, early adopter, it is likely that they are accessing from mobile or tablet devices making short and scannable all the more important.

The Response 

I would follow a scannable approach using lists or bullets to quickly pull the hottest topics to the forefront. To meld the two types of content, I would ideally write something that is compelling on both professional and personal levels. If it fits the bill, it could grab a users attention regardless of intent to find “fun” versus “industry” content.

The Content

I’d like to do a feature story on project management. It is a growing trend in the tech and advertising world (which used to rely on old school account managers). The ultimate goal would be an article that offers professional content for anyone in the industry and great social content for those who commiserate. Currently, Mashable has a project management category, but nearly all are product reviews. While this article would touch on product, tools and resources for PMs, it would also offer comic relief and commentary.