What is popbitch?

Popbitch http://www.popbitch.com revolves around a newsletter published every Wednesday evening and delivered free via email. The content is mainly pop insider gossip, humour and related or amusing items on the web linked out to in the body of the text. There is also a message board on the site, which is home to a vibrant community, consisting largely but by no means exclusively of music journalists.

When the subscriber base reached 30,000 the server collapsed and it has hence been closed to new members for a couple of months, but far from sounding its death-knell this has simply increased media attention and the general sense of an insider community, so it has benefited from an issue which would have killed off other such ventures. Voluntary donations from subscribers have paid for a new server, which itself has resulted in yet more press interest. It is now open again, with a subscriber base of around 36,000 and rising, and is based in a nuclear bunker.

Firstly we should understand how the site began. The creator of Popbitch, who for reasons of personal safety insists on being referred to as Professor Tentacle, started up as an email list at the end of 1999, by sending the email to a few friends and spamming some music industry email lists. It took ten weeks to get to eighty subscribers and 27 weeks to get to 1000.  It then took off, and is currently at around 36,000 despite being closed to new members for some months until very recently.

This was done for an absolutely minimal start-up cost, and depended entirely on viral expansion. As we can see from the figures and timescales involved the publication is obviously successful working in such a way, and there are lessons to be learned about how this essential “viral-ness” can be built into a venture.

Interestingly, this was not deliberate when Popbitch first started. Tentacle states:

“We didn't know much about "viral" when it started. However, since then have been careful not to take away "viral-ness" – for example we were considering doing an HTML version with pictures, but abandoned it because HTML emails are hard to forward.”

This is interesting when compared to the outlook of the founders of a very similar entity dealing with different content- Need to Know http://www.ntk.net

Dave Green told me:

“actually, this *was* one aspect we planned from the beginning, not plastering it with stupid copyright messages and the like, encouraging people to send it around if they include the URL.”

So, while NTK deliberately made their email viral by design, Popbitch achieved the same effect largely accidentally. The net result is, of course, the same.

There are many aspects to the way the publication is put together which contribute to its success. At the most basic level the concept works and it is constructed in a very effective way. Tentacle’s opinion is:

“The email works because it contains bite-size chunks of celebrity gossip. The short paragraphs make it very easy to read, and easy to forward to friends. Also it's about famous people, and it's hard to find anyone in media being nasty about famous people - because the celebrities tend to have the upper hand ("if you don't write nice things, you can't photograph me" etc etc)”

There are golden rules here. To make an email publication work, it is necessary to retain the interest of the reader. This means keeping paragraphs short and to the point, with the maximum information in the minimum possible words.

Craig Robinson of http://www.flipflopflyin.com is a Popbitch reader and web professional who sums up the appeal of the format:

“Popbitch have got it spot on. It takes 5 minutes or half an hour, depending on how deep you want to go into the links. It’s the perfect way to begin your Thursday at work.”

So there is flexibility in terms of the commitment the user needs to make in terms of time to get enjoyment from the email.

This is achieved due to the structure of the publication itself. Split into several sections, it includes items of interest to many people- chart predictions, pop gossip etc for those interested solely in the quickest information gathering possible, and for those readers with the luxury of time available, a large selection of pertinent links can be followed out and investigated. It is therefore not necessary to spend more than 5 minutes reading the email to gain benefit from subscription, but it is, equally, still rewarding as a longer-term basis for investigation of interesting stories.

The editorial technique means that there is not an unnecessary amount of explanatory text around any individual item. Particularly with links out, the items will explain themselves if the reader chooses to follow them, so there is no need to go into detailed description. Also, Unnecessarily verbose language is avoided around the information delivered within the body of the email.

This is very much the central idea behind the editorial process. Tentacle says:

“The "creative" process in making the email, such as it is, is very much focused on shortening stories as much as possible - it's very much

sub-editing. There's not much room for flowery writing.”

This idea is duplicated in other successful similar ventures, such as Need to Know http://www.ntk.net and Zentertainment http://www.zentertainment.com

So, editorially, we have a theory for successful publication via email- in short, keep it short. Unnecessary words should be avoided and the maximum information delivered in the minimum time.

There is of course more to success than structure- the most vital part of a successful publication, and for viral spread, is that people must enjoy the content.

Much of the content is based on what is available- the chart predictions, for example, are simply the mid-week charts which are sent around the music industry.

As Tentacle points out, the email works because it is able to provide people with celebrity gossip and news which cannot be printed in conventional media, and it is in many ways the content, and the way in which it is gathered, that makes Popbitch so interesting as a subject of enquiry.

The email readership started very small, and took time to build, though as discussed this growth proved exponential until server overload prevented expansion. However, it did quickly generate a community of people discussing this kind of thing. The basic meat of the email is pop gossip which cannot be published in the mainstream print media, but of course there are many journalists who stumble across such information and are not allowed to broadcast it. Providing these people with a common space in which to exchange gossip proved to be an enormously fruitful way to become party to the news before it was printed, and to information that would otherwise not have come to the attention of the public at large.

A message board, which Tentacle has been at pains to ensure has not become the main focus of the venture, was set up, and swiftly became regularly populated by journalists exchanging this kind of unprintable material. Of course, this community is the perfect entity from which to harvest top-quality content for the email publication, and so a virtuous circle was formed.

The community of Popbitchers share and discuss their insider knowledge on the message board throughout the working week. This provides very high-quality content to go out to the wider email subscriber-base (recent coups have included being the first to correctly predict the name of Madonna’s child, for example). This quality content in turn attracts more people into the community, generating more content.

So, as a model for the successful creation and distribution of a news publication online it is absolutely excellent. Now, the email largely writes itself, with the job of the originators being mainly the selection and sub-editing of stories gleaned from the community via the message board during the week.

This, then, is the model and the editorial technique which has proved successful. However, there is still obviously very much more to consider before we have a full understanding of the in depth mechanics of the workings of the venture.

If the news is unprintable, why are they allowed to publish it? There have been times when the subjects of some of the rumours have taken offence. One particular libellous accusation on the message board (not in the publication itself) resulted in it being taken down for some time, and the introduction of compulsory registration. In theory, anyone who makes these kinds of accusations in future should be personally traceable.

In the main, the gossip is good-natured. Many of the items are written “blind” in the format of questions- for example:

“Ritchie Neville has been in the news for picking up Russian models in St Petersburg. But which famous 80s popstars are also keen on visiting the former Soviet Union... to pick up sailors?”

Obviously this avoids libel problems very effectively, and also provides the readership with an enjoyable quiz.

One very interesting thing about the viral spread of Popbitch and similar entities is the perception of “cool”.

In the words of David from NTK:

“pretty much everything in NTK is, on one level, supposed to come from the memetic angle of "that's interesting, I did not previously know that, now I'll be able to tell someone else and appear interesting myself". if something doesn't meet that criteria it(usually) shouldn't go in!”

This, then, is a deliberate action on the part of NTK’s editors. What makes something cool is of course incredibly difficult to define. When asked to quantify this, Tentacle replied:

“F*** knows”

The bottom line for this vital criterion has to be an understanding of the readership on the part of the editors. If the newsletter is edited well, and the content meets the “cool” criteria for the audience then in theory there should be no reason other than chance to prevent its spread. The editor must have an instinctive understanding of how to achieve this by understanding the readership.

A main motivator for contribution by members of the community behind the entity is obviously the appearance of “coolness” – the idea that by having your contributions used you are gaining status amongst a group of people whose esteem you value.

A Guardian article dated April 2 2001 included a quote addressing this factor:

"One of my messages made it onto the newsletter once," says a music PR who wishes, in true Popbitch style, to remain anonymous. "I made up a story about Nicole Appleton being born with a tail, invented a bogus medical term for it, and they put it on. It was one of the proudest days of my life."

So, if the magic ingredient in the formula for success is unquantifiable, we have to drop back to the position that the editor understands his readership. We have to work on the assumption that if such an entity is edited well and contains the right content for the target readership, it will suck in people virally to the point where this “coolness” becomes apparent, and useful as a motivator in generating content.

This leads to the question of whether the content is particularly geared towards the “typical popbitcher” or even if there is such a thing. I asked Tentacle whether his content was tailored to his readership. He responded:

“In theory, it's just stuff I buzz off. However, you do find yourself tailoring stuff a bit. Try to be as self-indulgent as possible.”

So, the content in this instance is basically the information that the editor finds entertaining, and is presented in such a way that a large community of people find that they are also interested in the same things.

Similarly, when asked why NTK works, David responded:

“Its a combination of factors: trust (which comes from, ahem,editorial quality - eg we can spell and stuff); it's concisely written (often funny in places too); format (easily emailable or forwarded around, though we get some feedback from people who say it's hard to read on the site, which we've never really addressed properly); finally we actually enjoy doing it, unlike many professional publications we imagine, and I think that comes across somehow in the writing”

The final reason listed here equates to Tentacle’s statement that he includes what he “buzzes off” – the fact that these are labours of love written (or at least edited) by people who are genuinely passionate about the subject comes through in the content, and this obviously has a very positive effect on the readability of what is produced. This is unusual in most professional publications, and hence the writing style is inevitably affected.

It is also interesting to note that many of the founders of these successful operations have a background in journalism- this is of course unsurprising in terms of quality editing of written content.

As far as profiling the community members is concerned, this is effectively impossible as the majority of people are passive readers. I asked Tentacle if he had an idea of who these people were. He replied:

“Not really. Lots of media people, of course.

We've got a reader in Iran, too.”

Which is of course not the most effective customer profile. This certainly does not affect the success of the operation though. It is probably fair to say that the readership can be profiled very generally as people who enjoy reading celebrity / pop gossip that they are unable to find in the print media, and generally have a liking for odd comedy, which makes up a large portion of the content of each issue.

So, we have now an understanding of what Popbitch is, how it began and why in theory it works and is successful.

One very interesting thing about its recent history is its survival after running into the “victim of its own success” problem which affects many web-based operations with no real corporate financial backing.

As previously stated, once the readership reached around 30,000 the technical side of the operation began to fail. The site would regularly go down and the mailing list had to be closed to new subscribers. Approximately £2500 was needed for upgraded hosting services- a figure which was simply not available.

The response from Popbitch was to mount a “Bitchaid” server appeal.

This was very similar in concept to the server fund appeal launched by Blogger http://www.blogger.com shortly before.

Readers were asked to donate money of their own free will to guarantee the survival of Popbitch. All that was received in return was a sticker. The appeal managed to bring in considerably more than was actually required- a remarkable achievement.

How was this possible? Again, it is because people valued the product, the entity, and did not want it to disappear. This is again an issue of community and subscriber loyalty- both results of a quality publication. The collection of these funds was made harder by the lack of an online payment capability- cheques had to be posted in. However, the appeal was still an outstanding success.

So here we see the possibility of creating a viable widely read publication which has no financial backing whatsoever- at its most basic, the model which is emerging is one of a publication which provides its own content, its own marketing, distribution and funding completely without outside intervention or support, with no sales and no obligation to tow the line regarding what is considered publishable and what is not. This is surely a wonderful example of the largely broken dreams many people had about what the internet could provide being realised.

So, Popbitch survived its crisis, and is now once more open to new subscribers. The problem infact became in many ways a benefit. The press coverage resulting from the crisis and the appeal improved its profile, and again, the success of the appeal brought another round of press coverage. This all helped to guarantee that the Popbitch name and brand became more widely known throughout its potential readership, and the fact that it was now impossible to subscribe added a certain cachet to already being a member. The sense of community was again enhanced.

Again, the re-launch was extremely beneficial to the Popbitch brand, due to more than one factor. Firstly, the hosting company chosen are based in a nuclear bunker. This provided an exceptionally good angle for press attention. Being based in a nuclear bunker is, undoubtedly, “cool” – and enhances the image of the operation and generates interest. It also provided the opportunity for photoshoots in the bunker (in monkey masks and boiler suits to maintain anonymity)- a good angle for the print press.

An even more interesting aspect arising from this has been to bring the community from the virtual world into the real world, at least in part. A Popbitch party was thrown to celebrate the re-launch which generated a lot of attention, not least due to the rather shocking nature of the acts. Tentacle is not overly excitable about these nights (a regular pop quiz night is now also underway). He said:

“Um... they're OK. A lot of fun for us. Don't know how much they help the Popbitch brand.”

However, the community has branched into the real world of its own accord:

“There have been quite a few "popbitch relationships". A load of the editors all went on holiday together this month.

I think loving pop music as an adult is "the love that dare not speak its name"”

So, a common bond between people in the community has fostered real-world friendships and relationships.

At this point it would be interesting to look at another enterprise which published emailed text, of a different kind, and look at why it did not work so effectively.

Gimmesoap http://www.gimmesoap.com is an online daily soap opera, which I was heavily involved with. Similarly, it published an email, though in this case a daily episode of an ongoing soap opera.

Gimmesoap is now on hold, as it has not been viable to continue with the project without income. It has been extremely interesting and educational being involved with the project and gleaning knowledge about the way that these kinds of publications succeed and fail.

Gimmesoap published daily. It published around 700 words a day of an ongoing story. This proved to be too much of an overhead for the readership and ultimately also for the writers. This is a good example of how the formats used by Popbitch, NTK et al are so well suited to email delivery- firstly, people do not have time to digest a whole 700 word episode every day. 700 words of continuous story in one email is simply too time-consuming to read. It seems that it is basically necessary to break the content down into small information-rich chunks. Also, the daily publishing was not suited to the format. If a reader missed a day, it was unlikely there would be time to catch up completely. Again, the weekly approach is probably better suited to this kind of delivery. The most telling problem though, was that it was extremely difficult for subscribers to join the story mid way through, and people are not prepared to trawl through online archives. Hence, the main negative conclusions to reach about email publishing are very much in agreement with the positive conclusions reached earlier.

The format is inherently unsuited to the delivery of large, ongoing texts. Gimmesoap received widespread international press coverage, yet this in the end did not result in the financial rewards that would have made it viable to continue delivering the relatively large amount of edited content it required. The failure of Stephen King http://www.stephenking.com/ to publish his novel “The Plant” online is a similar, though more high profile example. The analysis of where people have gone wrong in attempting to publish online has to lead back to similar conclusions as the analysis of why some people have succeeded. There are obvious lessons to be learned here about appropriate use of the medium.

One particularly telling quote is going back again to David of NTK. He said:

“A quote which just occurred to me which kind of wraps up how NTK evolved: we thought it'd be "we filter the news for you". It ended up as "you filter the news for us"!”

The overhead to maintain a publication like this, where the readers filter the content for you, is obviously far, far lower than with a publication which has to be constructed completely originally every time it goes out.

So, if we look at Popbitch in detail, not just in terms of the few hundred words of slander that it sends out once a week, but in terms of the entity as a whole, we can see that this model of publishing electronically is more than simply the distribution of jokes. There is a possibility to create a self-maintaining and self-sufficient entity, built on an extensive community, which has no need to struggle for sales or finance, has no responsibility to corporations or stars and is completely outside the control of the mainstream media or the people about whom they write. It is a democratisation of the delivery of information- this model allows the general public access to information which would otherwise have been kept hidden by the companies which decide what is and what is not acceptable for print.

And it is growing.

Useful links:

http://www.popbitch.com - popbitch

http://www.ntk.net - Need to Know

http://www.zentertainment.com - Zentertainment

http://aintitcoolnews.com/ - Ain’t It Cool News

http://thedrudgereport.com/ - The Drudge Report

Press Articles:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv_and_radio/story/0,3604,370107,00.html - The Guardian Sep 2000 – Popbitch is taking off

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,42700,00.html - Wired March 2001 - server appeal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4163333,00.html - The Guardian April 2001 - financial difficulties

http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4180837,00.html - Media Guardian may 2001 - success of server appeal

http://www.fringecore.com/magazine/m10-11.html - interview with Dave Green from NTK- covers all issues

Related / interesting:

http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/ - the journal of electronic publishing

http://www.thecomicreader.com/html/icst/icst-5/icst-5.html - comic with something to say about web creativity vs money

http://www.stephenking.com/ - Stephen King