Cracked.com/Headscratchers


 * Why the frequent reruns lately? Photoshop contests get them more usually, but sometimes articles from two years ago get back on the RSS feed, causing hundreds (thousands?) of readers to check the site and find an article they alrady read. That's just lame.
 * They have a lot of articles on the site. Odds are good that there's a bunch that some people haven't read yet.
 * The reruns are usually when there's an expected lack of columnist contribution (usually on weekends) so the reruns can also be considered fillers as well as presenting old articles to newer readers.
 * Here's an odd little thing I noticed... there's an easy way to tell when you're seeing an old article: if it has more than two pages, its pre-2010 for sure. Not that the opposite is always true, but now even big lists (with, say, 8 or more items) are split in, at most, two pages. Any reason behind that, I wonder?
 * Probably because if there's three pages or more readers may not feel they have the energy to read that long on one article.
 * Well that can't be. This March 29, 2011 article is three pages long and it's fairly popular.
 * More likely because internet connections are getting faster, so the increased page length does not slow things down as much. Cracked articles tend to have lots of pictures.
 * It could be as simple as the ratio of bandwidth/article vs. impressions/cent.


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