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Blizzard Watch Podcast Uncut: The waiting room for patch 11.2
🕑 Added 2025-07-31 20:49:33 +0000 UTCThis week on the Blizzard Watch Podcast pre-show, Liz has concerns about how AI has affected, among other things, search traffic. Several news articles have confirmed what we've seen on our end from the analytics -- traffic is down because if people can just read an AI generated excerpt on Google itself, why go to the source? Even if their previous excerpt tech was hilariously incorrect a ton of the time, and because that excerpt was generated by scraping our content, there's no reason to give us a click, right? If you're not into righteous indignation, you might want to forward to timestamp 32:55 to skip the preshow.
Cory joined us for this week's show, and by coincidence there was also a Heroes of the Storm patch the day they recorded. What are the odds? Not very good, if you ask Cory. There was also a new Hearthstone Battlegrounds season to discuss. We're all very much looking forward to next week, when patch 11.2 finally releases, and we learn more about what Xal'atath has cooking. The Race for World First also already has our attention. We'll miss Void Storage, though.
Plus, this week we had a lot of time for listener questions, so don't forget to send those in. Sometimes we have a ton going on so we don't get to them, but they're always fun to answer. You can address them to podcast@blizzardwatch.com, ask them in the #patron-queue-and-podcast-questions channel on our Discord server, or send us a message on Patreon!
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Thanks so much for listening and I hope you enjoy the show!
Comments
Jacqui Tulley
I have some thoughts on the issues with engagement. 1. Discord web hooks. I know I looked sadly about those in the past, as Wowhead has them, and I would add a Blizzardwatch feed to my Discord in a heartbeat if I could. That web hook is great for targeting your intended audience - articles piped directly into Discord. If it exists, point me to it, and I will set that up today. 2. Opt-in marketing emails directly from Blizzardwatch (ie: not through Patreon). For this, I am referencing The Lever. They have several kinds of emails: Supporter targeted, featured articles (which also have links to additional articles), site news, the occasional fund drive and a few others. This is good to get directly into people's field of view. Most of these kinds of newsletters have daily and weekly roll-ups. For the Lever, the newsletters go to everyone, but the site is subscription-locked, and you know what you're getting into when you sign up, so it's not a bait-and-switch. 3. It's a long-shot, but the possibility of a name rebrand (keep the phoenix). I wonder with, between Blizzard no longer being king of the hill, and Blizzardwatch branching out to other games, a name that is more open-ended might help gain the interest of folks who are not interested in Blizzard but are interested in the other games that are covered by the site. I think of, again, The Lever. David Sirota first started the site as "Daily Poster" and at some point, he rebranded into The Lever (probably because Daily Poster sounds janky). I mean, I think that's a nuclear option, but you might want to keep this one in your back pocket. Don't forget, Wowhead is owned by ZAM Network LLC, which does business as Fanbyte, and is a subsidiary of Tencent. They have the money to fund Wowhead through such challenges (and WoW is still huge in China). As an aside, I find it remarkable that Wowhead was able to white label. Most fan sites consumed by Fanbyte are branded as a Fanbyte site. But I digress, There are also tips and tricks to prevent AI bots from stealing the site's information. While I am no coder, a quick search brought up a few sites with some tips and tricks. My gut tells me though, that direct-to-Discord feeds and leveraging more traditional "newsletter" email outreach (especially if it's opt in) is the low hanging fruit.
