Neetzan Zimmerman is a fascinating character.
"Zimmerman is the closest thing to a one-man embodiment of what he calls “the viral industry.” When Gawker hired him in early 2012, his boss A.J. Daulerio approvingly called him, “a total freak” for his ability to methodically scour the corners of the Internet for the video, memes, and Internet ephemera that would grow to popularity after being seeded with Gawker’s audience... In the last three months of 2013, his posts were responsible for more than half of Gawker’s pageviews and two thirds of the site’s unique visitors — nearly 40 million in total — according to Gawker’s public stats. For comparison, that’s more than 1/3 of the traffic of the entire the New York Times website." - Stan Alcorn (http://digg.com/originals/why-au...)
In this interview, @stphn_lacey gets Neetzen to share his strategy and daily routine; essentially, his method for being able to create viral content. I've never heard this story anywhere else. It was amazing.
@alexcartaz Thanks for sharing. He is such a fascinating guy. I was particularly interested in how he is applying those unique skills to an old-school congressional newspaper like The Hill. It sounds like an uphill battle, but he's seemingly having success with traffic. I know there is a lot of skepticism about someone like him among older reporters. But he is uniquely gifted (and open about what he does) and I've applied some of his strategies to my own day-to-day reporting.
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