Marketplace’s most viral stories of 2013
A look back at our best digital stories from 2013.
Thoughts, disclaimers, bad jokes, etc.: This is our look back at Marketplace’s top stories on Marketplace.org, Facebook, Twitter, reddit and Stitcher in 2013. Like Katherine Goldstein at Slate pointed out in her article on Slate’s most viral stories, one of the most interesting takeaways was the lack of overlapping stories between platforms. The only stories to appear on different lists were Income Upshot and a story on curing alcoholism in Russia.
Most viewed on Marketplace.org: These were our most visited stories in 2013, even if the article was posted before this year. A years-old story on alcoholism in Russia made our most-viewed list in 2013, probably due to hitting the front page of reddit (you can see the rest of our top reddit stories below). Timothy Geithner’s signature is still ridiculous looking, even though that story came out in 2012.
APM Marketplace on Facebook: Facebook posts are sorted by “biggest reach,” basically the total number of people who saw that post, whether because they like Marketplace on Facebook or saw the post through their friends. This list includes Facebook posts from 2013. Every top Facebook story included questions to spur discussion from our audience. None of these five stories were top stories on other platforms. Our Facebook post on unemployed millennials was Marketplace’s best Facebook story this year by far — which isn’t surprising because if you’re an unemployed millennial, you may be spending an inordinate amount of time on Facebook.
Do you agree with the TV show chosen to represent your state in this map?
Are you ready to retire? Be sure your retirement is on track, no matter what your age.
@MarketplaceAPM on Twitter: Twitter stories are ranked by most clicks of links in tweets to read the article, and only include stories from 2013. These titles are the headline of the story, not the actual tweets themselves. Take homes? Twitter loves Rob Delaney, everyone loves Sriracha, and “1234” is a mediocre PIN choice.
Exclusive: Sriracha founder reveals the ‘secret’ wholesale price of his sauce
How one family went bankrupt spending $100,000 on Beanie Babies
Marketplace on Stitcher: Stitcher is one of our most popular audio platforms to share individual audio segments. A lot of Stitcher’s traffic comes from the Bay Area, which may explain the focus on tech, banking, and yoga pants.
reddit: Articles on reddit are sorted by which stories received the most upvotes (basically reddit’s equivalent to Facebook’s likes). TIL stands for ‘Today I Learned,” reddit’s sub-section on interesting facts from the past. Three of the five reddit stories focus on tech in some way, which makes sense given reddit’s stereotype of tech-savvy millennials.