Google loses Viacom, me
Google had hopes that being the enormous, innovative new kid on the block would encourage the established media entities to submit to mutually beneficial friendships. If Viacom's one billion dollar lawsuit against Google subsidiary Youtube is any indication, Google might have to earn its friends the hard expensive way.
There was one, albeit small, media company Google had hook, line and sinker without speaking to a lawyer or spending a dime: Me.
My love affair with Google started about three weeks ago when I noticed The JSB's daily traffic had almost doubled. While I would like to think this was because of fascinating writing and word of mouth, when I looked into it I discovered I was getting an unusually large amount of traffic from search engines -- particularly Google.
For example, according to Google, I was suddenly the number one website in the whole entire universe for those looking for information on "Kenny Loggins plastic surgery." As I was for "Beyonce Knowles dies."
I was getting all sorts of new Google inquires in that off-beat vein. I just remember those two because they were so odd -- considering I never posted specifically on either subject -- and, in the case of Beyonce, thoroughly incorrect.
Google also cast me as the world-wide authority on any variation upon "how to smuggle marijuana onto an airplane." This was clearly triggered by a couple of posts I did on Quarterback Michael Vick's dimwitted attempt to do just that.
I know Google is always fiddling with its search algorithms, and I have noticed peeks and valleys in search engine traffic in the past. But this sudden page rank ascension shattered its way out of the normal ebb-and-flow. It was a delightful, ego-boosting mystery.
Then, last Thursday, it disappeared as quickly as it came. I'm no longer on the first page of "Kenny Loggins plastic surgery," and nowhere at all on "Beyonce Knowles dies."
As a result, my traffic dipped precipitously, and I have became depressed about what was not so long ago a comfortable reality.
So how about that Google? Figure out ways to usurp all the media content ever created and then sell ads on the side of the screen . . . what a business plan! Who came up with it? Tony Soprano?
There was one, albeit small, media company Google had hook, line and sinker without speaking to a lawyer or spending a dime: Me.
My love affair with Google started about three weeks ago when I noticed The JSB's daily traffic had almost doubled. While I would like to think this was because of fascinating writing and word of mouth, when I looked into it I discovered I was getting an unusually large amount of traffic from search engines -- particularly Google.
For example, according to Google, I was suddenly the number one website in the whole entire universe for those looking for information on "Kenny Loggins plastic surgery." As I was for "Beyonce Knowles dies."
I was getting all sorts of new Google inquires in that off-beat vein. I just remember those two because they were so odd -- considering I never posted specifically on either subject -- and, in the case of Beyonce, thoroughly incorrect.
Google also cast me as the world-wide authority on any variation upon "how to smuggle marijuana onto an airplane." This was clearly triggered by a couple of posts I did on Quarterback Michael Vick's dimwitted attempt to do just that.
I know Google is always fiddling with its search algorithms, and I have noticed peeks and valleys in search engine traffic in the past. But this sudden page rank ascension shattered its way out of the normal ebb-and-flow. It was a delightful, ego-boosting mystery.
Then, last Thursday, it disappeared as quickly as it came. I'm no longer on the first page of "Kenny Loggins plastic surgery," and nowhere at all on "Beyonce Knowles dies."
As a result, my traffic dipped precipitously, and I have became depressed about what was not so long ago a comfortable reality.
So how about that Google? Figure out ways to usurp all the media content ever created and then sell ads on the side of the screen . . . what a business plan! Who came up with it? Tony Soprano?
2 comments:
With all due respect to Kenny Loggins (who is a great songwriter, particularly when he's working with Michael McDonald), he does have sort of a womanly voice. Maybe his alleged plastic surgery has something to do with that. Or maybe he's having his archetypal songwriter's beard re-implanted.
As you might imagine, I was hot on the tail of any actual information about Kenny Loggins and plastic surgery, once JSB became the first stop for it.
I found nothing. Or any particularly recent photos. I can only hope, whatever the procedure was, his songwriter's beard was left in tact, or perhaps enhanced.
And Messina was consulted.
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