This is relevant to our discussion about online conversations last week. What do you all think?

I'd argue that GE-related conversations about manufacturing and engineering over-index in the "dark social" spaces of the web, and it should affect how we think about content.

Should GE help shift private conversations to the public areas of the web? Or perhaps private Branch threads, like this one, are an evolution of email chains.

Also, I'm curious if Jonah, Noah, and Chris notice a similar traffic ratio on their respective sites. I'm guessing that the way content is shared on Buzzfeed is a lot different than the Atlantic, varying significantly by interest and topic area.

BuzzFeed's Mat Buchanan wrote an article about the decline of email sharing last week: buzzfeed.com

I'm skeptical though. Most publishers we've spoken to still see 50% or more of their sharing traffic arrive via email. It makes sense, I think. Most of the time you read an article and can immediately think of a handful of friends who would find it interesting. It's a lot harder to stumble across something that your hundreds of Facebook Friends or Twitter Followers would enjoy. Though Jonah is getting pretty good at it :)

I feel like the most interesting conversations are still somewhat private, simply because people don't have to self-edit. I was at a breakfast conversation today that was videotaped and you could tell that the participants (of which Linda and I were two) were talking in soundbites for the camera. Everyone was too respectful of the next person's monologue - nobody "piled on." I think the same holds true for online sharing/conversation. Lots happens in public, and for some, their guard is down even then, but for the deepest, most meaningful or complex conversations, it seems the best bits still hide (even a little like here on Branch).

"Dark social" is a misleading new name for something very old, namely, a traffic source with no referral information and is often not social at all. For example, email blasts and client side RSS readers are two sources of direct traffic that don't involve any sharing or social interaction - just a clicks from nowhere.

In BuzzFeed's research, based on publishers reaching 300MM UVs, we have found that direct traffic goes to the least social sites and articles. It also skews toward readers in rural locations and people and those who don't update default software on their computers e.g. Safari user on Macs. It skew toward people who get email blasts and follow big celebrities (Kim K et al) - subscribers, not sharers.

That being said, private communication is very interesting and hasen't been studied enough because it is harder to get the required data sets. However Duncan Watts et al did write a great paper with lots of finding using anonymized email data. If you want to download the PDF:

google.com

Jonah, you say: "...we have found that direct traffic goes to the least social sites and articles."

Sure but what you deem "social" is misleading. By social, you mean "propensity to be shared on Facebook and Twitter." Though what all this "Dark Social" data shows (for the record, I think that's a ridiculous name for an old phenomenon) is that most "social" sharing happens on email, IM, etc. – not Facebook and Twitter.

So if many more people share content via private channels – such as email and IM – and, as you point out, that content is very different from the type of stuff you would share on Twitter and Facebook, shouldn't publishers be creating "Dark Social" content – not viral content – as the opportunity is larger?

//devil's advoc

Not exactly. Lots of email sharing DOES have a referral source. So we can see that sites with lots of sharing on FB and Twitter also have lots of web based email sharing. And big viral stories that spread on social sites also have lots of private email sharing.

Meanwhile those sites and stories have a much smaller percentage of direct traffic. So when lots of people are sharing publicly & privately via social sites & email you see LESS so-called "dark social" as a %.

The sites that get the most direct traffic to articles are the old school sites that have email alerts and big lists for distribution. And readers who use Outlook and client side RSS instead of Gmail and Google Reader and cloud based tech.

Make sense?

So Gmail/Gchat doesn't actually fall into the "Dark Social" realm?

How do you upload a pic? Want to show you how mail referrals look, have a screenshot.

No photo upload. Link via dropbox/photobucket/etc.?

Too much work. :)

But yes web mail sends referrals like:

36ohk6dgmcd1n-c.c.yom.mail.yahoo.net
web.mail.comcast.net
mail.google.com
mail.verizon.com
mail.aol.com

The most "social" private sharing via email isn't dark.

Interesting. So even though most people we know use web clients, like Gmail and Yahoo Mail, the vast majority of people still use desktop clients like Outlook?

In part. But the larger confusion is that Alexis called it "Dark Social" which sounds like one thing or at least a unified category of traffic. The reality is direct traffic is a catch-all for many different types of traffic we have trouble measuring.

Outlook is part of it. There are lots of situations where mobile devices do a poor job sending referral information. There are places where analytics break. International mobile is especially bad. There are https services that send referrals and some that don't. It is a total mess!