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I didn’t really know what to expect to get out of the blogging process and I certainly did not know what would draw the most interest from the loyal readers in the OC. What I have found out is pretty interesting. I was not surprised to find that there is a great and expansive gulf between the political views of those voicing their opinion on current politics. I have mildly surprised to see how much vitriol came out of people so quickly. I have been pleasantly surprised when people actually rise to the occasion and express themselves in a compelling way whether or not I agree with their viewpoint.
Now that you are a full paragraph into this story you are probably wondering what any of this has to do with either the headline or the attached pictures. The thing that I have been most surprised about in the blogging process is that there are a large number of bored and purposeless people that spend their days surfing the internet. For me blogging serves a couple of purposes: 1) it provides me an outlet to express my true views and have them exposed to the light of public opinion and criticism, and 2) gives me insight into the human psyche as I watch which posts draw the most comments and which posts draw the most hits. I have been very surprised to find that the stories that draw the most comments often do not draw a lot of hits and those stories that draw a lot of hits don’t always draw a lot of comments. The funny thing is that my second most “popular” (most hits) post is the one about ping pong gate. Was it my pithy commentary? Was it the in depth investigative reporting? No – it was that I used a picture that has moved to the top of the page on Google Images. People bored and searching for stuff about their hobby (ping pong) spend enough time to click on the picture and link to my story. I have no way of knowing how much time they spend reading the story, but I suspect many folks visiting that page only pause for a micro second or two.
As I started looking for patterns that is the chaos of the Juice, I started to figure out what really draws a lot of hits: 1) Good writing – whether or not you agree with him, Vern’s piece on Dave Ellis was well crafted and about a subject matter that was of significant local interest. 2) A post that has a cool or sexy picture – the Angelina Jolie story was headed by a great sexy picture featuring lots of cleavage. 3) A story that sounds like it might help a kid with a history project – the story about FDR gets more hits today than it did in the month that it was written and fell off of the front page of the juice months ago. 4) Stories about seasonal Icons – Vern’s great story about rudolph gets thousands of hits every christmas from people scanning the net for the cool and the interesting. 5) Stories about drugs – every story in the Juice about Pot gets a huge and continuing number of hits as the brotherhood of the 420 comes out in droves.
How could I take advantage of the lessons that I had learned. I have tried to piece together stuff that I think people will search for with both text and images searches – the topical (Charlie Sheen), drugs (Crack), the seasonal icon (Santa), my daughter’s current heart throb and frequent visitor to the OC whether it is the trampolines at Sky High or this past weekend at Dana Point’s St. Regis Hotel [my daughter still angrily recalls that she had herself wrapped in a Justin Bieber blanket while playing softball just at mile from his hotel room] (Justin Bieber), frequent historical school paper subject (John F. Kennedy) and then I just through in some sex (strippers) to round out the field. I will be curious to see how this experiment plays out. To aid me in my efforts to maximize hits to the site through the use of icons and catch phrases, I encourage each of you to add this link to your facebook wall. Those regular readers annoyed by this please forgive me and I promise to return to ticking you off tomorrow.
At least SOMEONE appreciates my Rudolph story, which I still think is one of the best things I’ve written:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2009/12/the-true-story-of-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer/
*Santa Claus does exist….no question. Charlie Sheen has two Goddesses, two boy twins and
Two and Half Men! ” Cocaine is for Horses Not for Men….they say it will kill you…but they don’t
say when….Cocaine..run all round my brain!” Dave Von Ronk 1962. Justin Bebo…or whatever name he is does not date Molly Cyrus….or whatever her name is. They are not American Icons……JFK is an American Icon….that half the people loved and adored and half
the people hated. Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan……were all ” I was
a patsy!”….they probably never even knew a girl named Pattsy! They may have had dogs named Pattsy that latter became fighting dogs for Michael Vick….who knows anyway?
The truth of the matter is that Lindsay Lohan, Christina Agulara, Brittany Spears, Robert Blake and Robert Downey Junior……are all our heroes. Add Charlie Sheen…..too! They are certainly not poster children for good government, healthy living or ethical work ethics…but then ….who is now a days? Newt Gingrich? Sarah Palin? Scott Walker? …..Golly, it is so difficult to find those we can look up to…..isn’t it?
Perhaps, some of you wonderful brother bloggers out there might point out some pillars of society that we might want to emulate or have our kids look up to as role models. We are
ready for new heroes.
rw
Tiger Woods is a bad, bad man.