Website:  Hot Clicks

Interview With: Jimmy Traina

What is your background?  How did you end up at SI?

I was actually a broadcasting major in college but I quickly realized that was a mistake. So I just tried to get jobs in any field of journalism. I ended up with a job at the Associated Press shortly after college. A friend from there ended up leaving for a gig at SI. After he was there for a little while, he gave me a tip that SI was hiring. I managed to get an interview and they made the very wise decision of hiring me.

You are around blogs all day long.  You could probably do a great job on your own.  Have you thought about creating one yourself?

I have. Most of my friends encourage me to do it on a daily basis because a) I find some unbelievable (i.e. inappropriate) stuff that I just can’t link to on SI.com and b) I can’t be completely 100% myself in Hot Clicks. But right now I’d only start my own blog if I could do it while still working at SI and I just don’t have the time.  I also don’t know if I have that much to say about sports. If I did start my own blog, sports would probably be only 20% of it.

How many emails do you get a day? How many unread emails are in your Inbox right now?

Bad timing. I just cleaned out my inbox. But I last checked my email at 10pm last night. I logged on to my email at 7am today. I had 72 unread messages. 50 of those were Hot Clicks related. So I probably get close to 100 a day.

Have you had to mark certain bloggers emails as spam because they send every post they create?

Ha. Good question. I haven’t spammed any bloggers. There are only a few who send me links every single day, and it doesn’t really bother me.

How many “Thank You” emails do you receive a week when you bring blogs thousands of visitors?

Most sites that I link to on a regular basis have e-mailed me to say thanks. Bloggers have been extremely gracious.

What is a typical day at work for you?  Do you just scour the internet for stories to link up or do you have other responsibilities?

Typical work day starts at 7am when I get on the train. I fire up my laptop and check emails for about 45 minutes. I get to the office at 8 and I go through more emails and surf the Web. When Hot Clicks first started, 10% of the links came from emails and 90% came from me surfing. But now that Hot Clicks has sort of taken off, I probably get 75% of the links from email and 25% from me surfing. So for all the bloggers reading this — make sure you email good stuff. Anyway, I have a deadline to get Hot Clicks posted on SI.com between 10-10:30. From 10:30 to 11 I’m in a daily SI.com meeting. Once that’s over, I then spend several minutes fixing all my typos and answering some email because I usually get some questions/comments/praise/criticisms right after Hot Clicks go up. Then I get to work on producing the rest of the Extra Mustard page. I usually have one or two columns a day to edit and post. I also put together our weekly Caught in the Act photo gallery, so I try to spend time each day surfing photo web sites.

In the latest Comscore Rankings that The Big Lead is able to provide, SI is ranked 8th among major sports media sites.  Being that you are a producer for them, is this something you keep an eye on?

Of course. How could you not keep an eye on them, you know?

What kind of advice would you give bloggers who are trying to get noticed?

There are many people way more qualified than me to answer this question, so the first thing I’d tell them is to seek those folks out for advice. But obviously being original and unique always helps. Thinking outside the box will always get you noticed. And try to practice quality over quantity. More posts don’t equal a better site. Oh, and Erin Andrews photos always help.

Any bold predictions for the future of sports media on the internet?

I think this is a fascinating time for all media. I honestly think – and I could be way off on this – but I really do think that the two entities that have had the biggest influence on media over the past couple of years are Perez Hilton and TMZ. I honestly don’t think 5 years ago mainstream media sites would’ve ran with a story about one player telling another player to “taste is ass.” But TMZ had that video. And once that happens, the party is over. It’s everywhere. And fast. And I don’t think media outlets quite know how to handle it all yet. But at the end of the day, this is a business and the bottom line is money. You have to give people what they want in order to generate traffic (if you want to stay in business.) So it’s really the readers that are going to determine where things go.