"Like The Onion, the editorial team at Upworthy begins with dozens of headlines and works on them until they create what Mr. Pariser called “a curiosity gap” — a need to know more that prompts the impulse to click on something. That means when the site wants to shine a light on a video about a multinational sprawling octopus, it just asks a simple question and answers it. “How Can One Company Run Nuclear Arsenals, Schools, And Even Time Itself? Like This."
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People keep looking for recipes for traffic-generating headlines. And time and time again, they come back to the same conclusion: stimulate curiosity, write like you’d talk, and encourage people to share what they’ve found.
Upworthy, which launched earlier this year, seems to be proving this out.