So whenever I read the NY Times, I invariably wander over to the right lower side of the webpage and look at the "most-emailed" articles. I usually am able to find 2 or 3 interesting pieces to read in there and the bigger more meaningful pieces often end up there pretty quickly. I also get to find some articles that seem totally stupid and boring to me, but click on them to figure out why they are number on the list. (irrelevant, but I love stories like this about how all these haughty taughty luxury stores are *gasp* discounting luxury goods. *Jerk off gesture.*) (Here's another article, but it's more along the line about how millionaires are still buying $191,000 dollar purses because they're still millionaires.)
What I never look at though, are the other two tabs in that section: Most Blogged and Most Searched. I mean, I've clicked on them, but I've never really paid any attention because they don't really seem to offer much. But today, because work was a little slow today (I can't tell if that's terrifying or ok…) I looked at it for a little longer, and then furrowed my brow. Here's the list for the last 24 hours, and a few choice selections.
1. obama
2. november 5, 2008
3. mumbai
4. china
5. cancer
6. education
7. india
8. december 2, 2008
9. bush
10. health
11. modern love
13. canada
23. women
35. sex
36. recession
45. economic crisis
50. pakistan
Now I'm not going to go through these one by one, but I think that taking a few minutes to just think about parts of this list will leave you slightly baffled. Of course the high ranking of Mumbai makes sense, because a very specific event just took place. But searching for "Obama" doesn't make sense, mostly because every other article involves Obama. What is going through your head when you type Obama into the NYTimes search? What story are you looking for?
#5 cancer is sad. Because if I or someone I knew got cancer, it's likely I would type it into a NYTimes search just to see what I could find either to boost my spirits or find hope.
#6 education is a little baffling to me. Education is important. So is oxygen. Why is it #6 on the search frequency? I think Obama's choice for education secretary is going to be an interesting and highly covered issue, but if that's the case, where the hell is "commerce" or "state" or "homeland security"?
#13 Canada. Heh.
#23. Women. #35. Sex. #Wtf. This is the NYTimes, what are you doing?
And which random topics do NYTimes readers search for less, but with at least SOME interest?
Numbers 36, 45, and 50. Recession, Economic Crisis, Pakistan.
6 comments:
It's probably filtered down to just keywords. I doubt that many people are just searching for "obama". It's probably like "new obama staff" or "i love god and hate black people how the hell did we elect obama" or something, and it's just that the word "obama" comes up the most.
That's a good point...But that doesn't explain the rest of it...
Nice editorializing.
I'm more surprised that "boobs" doesn't make an appearance in the top 10. We're keepin it classy these days!
Dunno if you've read this, but it is a really interesting story: The Man in the Rockefeller Suit
Surely there's a movie in the works...
- H
I bet we could get Boobs into the top 50 with a concerted campaign. Anyone in?
H: I started reading it at home, but then realized it was 9 pages. I'm totally going to read it at work instead.
Ha -- that's why I posted it. I thought it would make good work reading.
Nice one.
Post a Comment