Pitchforkmedia.com is beginning to publish their annual “The Year in Music”, best-of lists. Most years, this is a signal for me to blow my Christmas cash on another stack of CDs (nope, not all digital yet), but this year, I was also caught by a savvy bit of marketing that Pitchfork is playing out.
On their index page, they are heavily promoting lists like “The Best 100 Tracks of 2008”, but releasing each list in chunks of 50, with a new part being published each day this week. Instead of blowing all the knowledge in one go, Pitchfork opts for the slow reveal, creating more fervor from their readers, and simultaneously building a more profitable experience for themselves, as the repeat visits mean more eyeballs their ad space (which seems to be part of their profit model).
Something to think about for my “Top 100 Ways to Welcome Your New Insect Overloads” list.